


Star-Crossed to Eden

by Goodnightsammy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universes, Ben Solo Deserved Better, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo gets the girl, Ben Solo is a Dork, Ben Solo is a Mess, Ben Solo is a klutz, Ben Solo is a lonely bastard, Ben Solo is alive, Ben Solo is in love, Ben Solo needs a nap, Engagement, F/M, Fix-It, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Good Parent Han Solo, Han Solo Lives, Happy Ending, He'll get there eventually, I swear, Implied Smuggler Ben Solo, Jedi Ben Solo, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Leia is a shit parent, Light Side Ben Solo, POV Ben Solo, Parent Han Solo, Poe Dameron Being a Little Shit, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey & Rose Tico Friendship, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey of Jakku, Scavenger Rey (Star Wars), Slow Burn, Soft Ben Solo, Sort Of, Time Travel, Tros fix-it, World Between Worlds, Young Rey, alternate time line, more tags to come, some Rey POV, this is gonna be a long one folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 25,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24265069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodnightsammy/pseuds/Goodnightsammy
Summary: Ben Solo wakes up in the World Between Worlds and a mysterious voice tells him to pick a door. He'll do what ever it takes to find Rey again, even if it takes forever.*“The right one?” A voice booms, then. The low rumble rolls through the stone floor and vibrates inside of his chest. He didn’t get a chance to respond before she was speaking again, “and what constitutes the right one?”“The one with her in it,” Ben breathes, as if the answer were obvious, the confession hot against his lips where the memory of her kiss was branded.“She’s behind almost all of these doors,” the voice says knowingly. If she were a living, breathing entity in front of him, Ben could almost imagine her cocking her head to the side in wonderment, “many versions of her, many moments of time, young and old, light and dark.”“I don’t want any version of her,” Ben growls, his desire a sudden and primal presence on his tongue.“No?” The voice seems to cluck in return.“I want the one that’s mine.”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 176
Kudos: 447





	1. Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! This one is gonna be a looooong one, so buckle in for the ride. I already have (some) of it written, but I'll try to post once a week at least--probably on Monday nights cuz that seems to be when I actually get stuff done. 
> 
> I had seen so many fics of Rey trying to find Ben in the World between Worlds and I thought, hey, what if Ben tried to find his way back to her 
> 
> Warnings cuz I literally know nothing about the world between worlds and am totally making all this crap up as I go along.

When Ben wakes up, he finds himself on the cold, stone floor—which isn’t surprising. He’s still wearing his same torn sweater and dark pants he had worn when he’d ran to her—stripped of his cape and brandishing only a blaster—his father’s son, surely, no longer Kylo Ren. What is surprising is the lack. He doesn’t ache; his ribs don’t scream from where they cracked and caved; his leg doesn’t throb from where it snapped in two; he is void of pain. This is the first indication Ben has that he’s dead. That doing that thing that had saved her life must have given all of his, but he doesn’t regret it. There’s a sort of relief in it, actually. A relief that keeps his breathing even and his head clear. The place he finds himself is also void of sound, it seems, which is strange, and is his second clue. It had been loud on Exegol—Thunderous lighting strikes ripping the sky in half and screeching fighter jets streaking above. Here it was quiet, the only sound is his body scraping against the ground as he pulls himself up to find he’s surrounded by doors. They spiral up around him, swirling toward an endless infinity above him. It’s dizzying as his eyes trail up and up and up, following them. It takes a moment as he stands, turning in circles to take in the mass of it all, to realize he isn’t dead, that he knows this place.

“The world between worlds,” he breaths to himself, the realization flooding like a warm heat through his veins. He had read about it once—had heard the rumors, the tales of a place outside of space and time and yet tethered to it all. He knew that must be what this was. Each door must be a universe, another moment in space or time, another reality threaded through it all and here he stood in the eye of the needle. He hadn’t noticed it immediately, the energy that pulsates around him, but now, alert and awake he could feel the center of everything, the way the force seemed to flow freely and yet, at the same time, shutter to a halt. There was something else, too, below it all. A low whisper against his skin. A light breeze like fingers carding through his hair. A feeling that beckoned him forward. Something that coaxed, prodded, no—demanded, he pick a door.

Ben’s mind spun as he followed the doors up, up, upwards. He could leave, he could run to her. If only he could find the door that led to her. _Endless,_ he thought, _endless. I’d never pick the right one._

“The right one?” A voice booms, then. The low rumble rolls through the stone floor and vibrates inside of his chest. It was loud, clear, and overtly feminine. There was something calming in the way it spoke, even though the question seemed to spike through his mind. It reminded him of his mother’s whispers against his ears at night as a child. He didn’t get a chance to respond before she was speaking again, “and what constitutes the right one?”

“The one with her in it,” Ben breathes, as if the answer were obvious, the confession hot against his lips where the memory of her kiss was branded.

“She’s behind almost all of these doors,” the voice says knowingly. If she were a living, breathing entity in front of him, Ben could almost imagine her cocking her head to the side in wonderment, “many versions of her, many moments of time, young and old, light and dark.”

“I don’t want any version of her,” Ben growls, his desire a sudden and primal presence on his tongue.

“No?” The voice seems to cluck in return.

“I want the one that’s _mine,”_ he declares, voice firm. His whole body seems to tense with the truth of it. It still scared him, sometimes, what she does to him. How she gets his blood boiling and heart aching. How she fills all of the cracks of him that were made over the years. How she pieces him back together like sunshine gleaming through a stained glass window, lighting the fragments into brilliant colors and making him into something shiny and new.

“And you can have her,” the voice croons. It’s the first time he senses anything remotely sinister in the air and even then it’s just a hint, a suggestion in the edge of her voice, almost like a parent scolding her child for something he couldn’t yet understand, “if you can find her.”

_Pick a door, pick a door, pick a door, pick a door._

The words seem to echo around him, bouncing off of each wall, sinking deep into his bones. Ben’s fingers twitch as he considered his options. There’s one he likes—it’s a small, blue thing. Arched planks tucked away into the stone walls. It reminds him of a place he’d seen with his father many years ago. He takes a step toward it, heart thundering against his ribs, and reaches for the handle.

“How will I get back here, if I choose the wrong one?” He asks then, frozen.

“If you wish to keep searching, you must only ask,” the voice answers, smooth and low, “but be warned, young Solo, many lifetimes could be lived in the time it takes. By the end of your journey, you may reconsider your previous convictions.”

Ben grit his teeth, taking a tight hold on the handle, white knuckled determination urging him forward, and he pushes it open. Blue light washes over him.

“We’ll see,” he replies, and the answer drips like venom from his tongue, because how could she suggest he’d ever stop searching, before taking a step out into the light.

It’s a hot gust of hair that greets him first, slamming into him. It’s the sand he sees second, endless expanses of sand. He doesn’t waiver, not for a moment as he stares off toward the horizon—instead, he squares his shoulders and sets his jaw before stalking out into the distance.


	2. Rey the First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give you this (far too early and I really need to stick to my schedule) because I wanted to give you all a little bit more to hold on to until I got going with the meat of the story.   
> Thank you so much for the amazing response on the first chapter!

The first Rey he meets isn’t the right one. Well, Ben supposes it _could_ be, many years from now, but it doesn’t matter. After a day and a half of wandering the desert, he came across an outpost. The creature behind the bar of the cantina had narrowed his beady black eyes as Ben approached. Ben could only imagine how wild he looked in his thread bare sweater, lightsaber hole in his middle. Not to mention he was wearing all black in the midst of a sea of sand. The creature had been helpful enough and had pointed him toward the Niima outpost, eyes slanted in suspicion as Ben went. He had been relieved to learn he was on Jakku—that would at least make things easier. Now though, standing in front of an eight-year-old Rey made him think that things weren’t going to be easy at all.

He had scoffed under his breath when he saw her for the first time, a small set of bouncing buns like a mirage in the distance. She was immediately recognizable except for the fact that she was about three feet shorter than she should have been. Ben had told himself then that he should ask the year next time—at least he would know if he was in the right decade.

“Is this where you live?” He asks, ducking down to follow her through the door of the AT-AT. It was a rusted-out shell of the Empire in the graveyard of the war, and Ben winced as he thought about her growing up here among ghosts of the long dead. How had she remained a constant thread of hope in all this darkness? Ben supposes she was always a desert flower blooming in spite of the heat and drought.

The girl nods in return, little buns bouncing has she does so, and Ben has the sudden urge to sweep her up from this horrid place, to protect her, hell, maybe even bring her to Luke, but he’s afraid of changing the future. This isn’t his place, after all. She drags him by the hand around her small home, pointing out all of her little things. She holds out her doll to him—a rough, handmade thing with an orange pilot jacket on—he takes it slowly and smiles.

“Why are you all alone?” He questions then, voice quiet. Of course, he knows the answer, but he wants to hear it from her little lips, wants to see the truth in her small, sparkling eyes. He feels some pride in how she opened up her home so easily to him, without a doubt of suspicion in her eyes, as if in some world she would know him.

“I’m waiting for my parents,” she answers, the confession matter of fact. She looks up at him, trusting an unafraid. It’s so unlike the first time they’d met—her eyes narrowed in defiance and fear as he’d pursued her through the green haze of Takodana—but not unlike the last. Not unlike when she gazed at him through their bond in the force and trusted him with everything she was, in spite of everything he was. Ben latches on to the image of her, bright and burning in his memory.

“And how do you survive out here, all alone?” He continues. It’s another little reality that he already knows the answer to. He’d seen it digging around in her head all that time ago. Ben thinks vaguely to himself that he hasn’t done it yet, not here, not in this place, that there’s still a chance to change. His mind wanders again, playing with the idea of her growing up at Luke’s temple, only an arm’s length away from another him from another time.

“Unkar Plutt gives rations in exchange for parts. I can fit into small spaces and find the best ones,” she grins proudly, a few teeth missing from her wide smile, and Ben can’t help but chuckle in return. She lets him sit down at her table, and her small, calloused hands offer him some of her precious food. For a moment he thinks he can leave her here to live her life and find her path, for a moment he’s ready to walk out of the door—she had made it to him, in the end, hadn’t she? But he looks at her hollow cheeks and cavernous dimples digging a pauper’s grave into her face, and his memory flickers to disgusting oaf of a creature he had seen when heading through the outpost, his voice a harsh grumble as he took parts for portions out of a little shack, and Ben’s eyes grew dark.

Eventually he’d have to find some sort of resolve. Eventually he’d have to stop himself from altering timelines. But not this time. Maybe this moment was meant to happen, as all things are. Maybe he was supposed to find this girl, this little desert flower, and take her to someplace better.

“Rey?” He whispers, and she doesn’t ask how he knows her name, only looks up at him, her little freckled sloping nose pointed toward his face, “have you ever heard of the Jedi?”

She nods eagerly, and Ben sits at the small table near the center of the room. He listens attentively as she tells him the stories her father had once told her—about white knights with swords made of blaster fire. He’s nearly drifted off to her little ramblings, eyes closed after a long day wandering in the desert heat, when he’s aware of a finger poking at his side.

“What about you, mister?” she questions.

“Ben,” he tells her, eyes softening, “my name is Ben.” He sees her think about the admission for a minute, rolling it around in her head before seeming to settle on it. “Yes,” he continues, answering the half question she had asked, and her sandy hazel eyes flash with interest. He remembers how green they had been in that forest, how dark her pupils had been with the reflection of his mask in them, “yes I know of the Jedi. I was one, once. A long time ago.”

“They’re real?” She breathes, and Ben takes in the outline of her ribs against her dusty clothes.

He nods, his determination stronger than before, and he tells her, “you could be one too, if you wanted.”

Ben can see her light up at the suggestion, but her head turns toward the back wall where she’s scratched thin tallies into the metal shell of the AT-AT. She doesn’t have to say it. He knows, doesn’t he? He had seen it in her head all that time ago— _so afraid to leave._ Only eight and she’s already bound by some sense of duty to wait for the people who would never return to her. He offers out his hand to her.

“I promise you, Rey, if you come with me now, you’re just as likely to find them than they are to find you here.” It isn’t a lie, not really. He can’t tell her the truth of it all, not with her saucer-wide eyes searching his for something to believe in. He’ll scoop her up and away the next morning, up and away and safe forever.


	3. A Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I go again posting this nonsense far too early. Will I ever slow down--probably. Enjoy it while it lasts. Thank you all so much for the wonderful responses to the first couple of chapters. I hope I can write a fic that lives up to all of your expectations (I probably won't, but i'll be damned if I don't try.)

He takes her to Luke in an old heap of junk he stole from Unkar Plutt’s collection of ships scattered around the desert. The temple was a secret, in order to keep it safe from any who might not be so friendly toward the rise of the Jedi. It’s been a while since he’s stepped foot in that place, but he knows his way to it like he knows how to breathe. He plots his course and flies out of the Jakku atmosphere. Rey is a ball of excitement next to him.

“I’ve never been off planet,” she rambles, “what moon is that? How are there so many stars?” She’s speaking so quickly Ben can only wonder how her tongue is not in knots. He had thought she would fall asleep in a back bunk of their little freighter, curled up against the cool metal walls. Instead, she spends the whole trip in the co-pilot’s chair next to his.

“Show me how to do it,” she asks after a while, voice small, and Ben suddenly feels like his father. He wonders vaguely to himself how long it will be before he greys like Han did. He doesn’t like to think about his father—the memory of his hand grazing Ben’s face constricts his lungs at night. Yet, Ben always knew he’d be the death of Han. If it weren’t for his saber blade, the stress, the guilt of who his son truly was, would have sent the man to an early grave.

“How to fly?” Ben hums, still stuck in thought, and she nods. He points out the hyperdrive, shows her how to steer, tells her which buttons to press and when, and when he finally arrives at the wash of green he once called home, she’s curled up in the chair next to his, snoring softly.

*

He hadn’t really thought it all through—what he would say to the old man when he saw him—how he would explain himself. Surely not enough time had passed in between him and now for Ben to be unrecognizable. When the ship touches down there is already a small swath of padawan’s gathered around to see the unidentified visitor. He tries not to look to hard at their faces, lest he recognize them—that’s another memory he tends to avoid. Maybe all of this was just atonement. Maybe this was Hell. But he turns and looks at Rey’s sleeping form and thinks he must be blessed, if only to have this moment with her. Ben pulls Rey up from her chair and lets her wrap her arms around his neck, still half asleep, as he carries her down the ramp. Luke stands among the children and their searching eyes. There’s something curious in the line of Luke’s brow when he sees them emerge from the freighter, and he hastily shoos away his students.

“Back to meditation now,” he tells them, voice stern enough for the children to scatter, but not so stiff as to raise unease about the visitor. He stops one of them as she turns to go, and whispers something in her ear. She nods and scurries off towards one of the small huts. “You, I assume,” he begins, voice friendly, but low, “are my nephew.”

Ben comes to a pause a few paces from his uncle—much younger than the last time the two had met—and shifts his weight from one foot to the next as he adjusts Rey in his arms. The movement feels like a reflection of the past, and he wonders, for a moment, if he looks down, if red would be bleeding up from the dry grass.

“In a way,” he offers, the words clipped and uncertain.

The man only stares in return, seeing through Ben in that way he always hated—blue eyes piercing. The silence is a hollow thing, and Ben is worried just how much Luke can see.

“I brought you a student,” Ben continues, tilting his head down toward the girl in his arms. He’s eager to avoid the topic of himself. There’s too much past in him, too much future yet to come.

“You’ve brought me much more than that, I’m sure,” Luke rumbles. The cryptic words grate against Ben’s nerve’s in a familiar sort of annoyance he had learned after all those years Luke’s junior. His uncle would always be a reminder to Ben of being left behind.

_I’m sorry, Ben. I failed you._ The words buzz through his veins a cold memory, but he follows when the man beckons Ben back into his hut.

Luke settles down on a small cushion on the floor, and motions for Ben to do the same. He settles in, still holding the sleeping Rey in his arms. It must have been exhausting, all that excitement in one day. He reminds himself, not for the first time, that he’s doing the right thing. _She’ll be happier here._

“Where are you from,” Luke asks then, turning to grab a pot of tea from where it was warming on an open flame, “or when?”

“Too far, too long,” is all Ben has to say, really. He shakes his head when Luke offers him a cup, and the man pulls his own to his lips instead. It’s then that there’s a knock on the door frame. The girl from before wanders in, and Ben keeps his eyes from her own.

“Just leave the clothes there, thank you,” Luke tells her calmly. He waits for her to leave before turning his attention back to Ben, “I thought you could use a change of clothes,” the man explains as his eyes drag down the length of Ben’s frame.

“I appreciate that,” he acknowledges, but does not move to change.

“And why is this girl so important?” Luke wonders then, “that you would come all this way to deliver her to me?”

Ben picks his words carefully. He knows time must be a delicate thing. “She will be very powerful one day—more powerful than any Jedi you’ve ever seen,” Ben answers. The two men are dancing around each other, in a way. Asking questions and giving half answers. Ben tries to remember if it was always like this between them, and he thinks it probably was. Both men always too stubborn for their own good—it wasn’t the Jedi way. There was always a little dark in Luke, too. 

“But why is she so important to _you?”_ Luke drags out, and the last word seems to punctuate the air.

“Because one day she will be his, and he will be hers,” Ben admits, voice tightening in his throat, and he vaguely wonders what the boy with his face is doing now. Is he holed up in his room, meditating? Perhaps he is scribbling away with his calligraphy set. Surely, he had dreamed of her, even then, even with the voices churning around his head like the tea leaves rolling in Luke’s cup. His soul had always called out to her, hadn’t it?

“Yours, you mean?” the man clarifies.

Ben shakes his head, “no, she isn’t mine. I’ve been—looking,” he stops for a moment, taking one final look around the hut, “I should probably go now, anyways.” Ben detaches the girl from his neck and lays her down on the ground so that her head is resting on the cushion. Ben pulls himself up to stand, grabbing the tan robe that had been sat down next to him as he does so, and Luke rises across from him.

“She won’t like that you’re gone when she wakes,” Luke warns.

“She’ll have him,” Ben answers simply, shrugging. He turns then, about to leave, and takes in the sight of the temple through the doorway. It was something to see it standing—as if just the sight of it could wash away the sins that had been carved into his skin. They were gone now, weren’t they? His scars all melted away at her touch. He’s still caught on the thought of her when his uncle’s voice drifts over to him a final time.

“How did you get here—really?” Luke asks, and Ben throws the man a long look over his shoulder. There’s too many things for him to say and not say, and for a sudden, fleeting moment he wants to apologize for all the things he did in his own life but hasn’t yet done here. Ben bites his tongue instead and looks back down at the sleeping child.

“Through the center of it all, where all places meet,” Ben tells Luke. And then, as if speaking to the air itself, “I’m ready to go now.”

And as his voice fades, he fades with it.

*

“You could have stayed,” the voice tells him when Ben appears back in the spiral of doors. He’s still thinking of the little girl curled up on the floor of Luke’s hut. He’s hoping Luke won’t remain a memory of abandonment for her, as he had been for Ben. The thought drags a sour taste up the back of his throat.

“I was old enough to be her father,” Ben shoots back, bitterness and frustration eating away at him now. _You did the right thing,_ Ben tells himself, _she’ll be safe there._

“She doesn’t have a father,” the voice continues, and Ben has the sudden, lighting quick urge to punch her right in her invisible teeth. His fist clenches white-knuckled at his side. Even now, anger seems to be a palpable thing that crawls up into his throat. Even after casting away the dark that had for so long pulled him close.

“I am not her father,” Ben grits out, the words tight between his teeth.

“No—you want more, young Solo. What? That I do not yet know,” she drawls out. Her words seem to surround him from every angle, as if her eyes were every door and he was a curiosity for her to consider.

“You know what I want,” Ben growls, “I’ve told you.” There’s something in him that knows she could just give Rey to him, if she wanted, and that burns a fire low in his stomach. 

“You’ve told me something, yes. But do _you_ know what you really want, child? That is still to be seen,” her voice seems to fade away until Ben is left with a haunting silence.

“Pick a door, Solo,” he grumbles to himself, turning to study all of his options, “and by Maker, let it be the right one this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. These moments are going to feel super short. But we'll get to see some of these other worlds in more depth eventually, I promise. Ben's just gotta slow down first.


	4. The Light Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should be doing my homework, and yet, I'm churning out this crap like it's butter. I hope it's good butter... I really should slow down. This chapter is a bit longer than the last couple, so enjoy the longer length at least. Thank you all for the amazing comments you're leaving me, I love reading them.

His work takes on a sort of monotony that Ben had not been wholly prepared for at the start. Even with the endless possibilities available to him at any reach of the door, even with the sheer statistical improbability of ending up in the right place at the right time, he had thought maybe it would be easy. Maybe fate or the Force would carry them back together. But the woman—the mother of all things, he knew—seemed to have other plans. In a way, it _was_ as if the pair were tied to each other by a thread—like that of the tendrils of Force that make up all things, but stronger, thicker. Even with each universe he wandered, Ben would always end up in the same system as her, closer even. He would always end up in a time of her existence, though her own age might change. He’d learned to ask the date, to not busy himself with worlds that were clearly not his to belong in, but sometimes he fell into a place he could not bring himself to turn away from without a closer look.

Three doors after the first is one of these instances. Ben finds himself stepping into what appears to be military quarters. There are bunks lined up and down the room, each one with a chest for belongings at its end. It was unkempt, pilot jackets hanging from bed posts and beds not fully made—clearly not a First Order base. There was something homely about this place that clashed with his image of cold metal walls and too white lights. Ben’s standing there, turning to take in the room when a voice calls from the doorway behind him.

“Hey Solo, I’ve been looking for you!”

Ben stills as he meets the man’s eyes. He knows this man—recognizes him from somewhere. “You know me?” He asks, a little unsure.

“Am I not supposed to?” The man questions, thick, caterpillar brows quirking in confusion. There’s a sly smile on his lips. His hair is a mop of dark curls and his skin is a warm summer tan. Ben knew this man, from where, the memory was still escaping him.

“I—” Ben starts, but before he could finish the thought, the man is speaking again.

“Look man, are you okay? Should I go get your mother?” He asks, taking a wary step forward. _Concern_ is what he reads on the man’s face, not fear, not defiance or anger like it had been some years ago when they met for the first time. Ben _does_ know this man. He’d looked into his mind in search of Luke Skywalker—this was Poe Dameron, the Resistance pilot, the general, his mother’s pride. _His mother._ The words seem to finally catch up to Ben and he lets the question of her stumble off of his tongue before he can stop it.

“My mother?” He breathes. It’s clear to him he’s in the wrong place. It’s clear to him that this world is not his—that in fact, there is another him living and breathing in it—but he can’t bring himself to turn away, to leave.

“Yes, your mother? The general?” The frustration evident in Poe’s voice now, “are you screwing with me? Because I have work to do and I’d really like it if we could get to it.”

“Where’s Rey?” Ben asks. Because surely, _surely_ if this is the Resistance base and his mother is alive then Rey must be nearby.

“Who’s Rey?” Poe shoots back, but before Ben can turn the weight of his answer over in his mind long enough to realize the implications, he is pulled away from his thoughts.

“Dameron!” A voice calls from further down the hall, and it’s hauntingly familiar, like hearing yourself speak on a holo, “I’ve been trying to find you.”

“What the hell?” Poe exclaims, jaw sagging as his eyes turn toward the other him rounding into the doorway.

Ben had assumed this might happen at some point—coming face to face with another him—but when he met his own eyes for the first time, it was as if the universe went cold around the edges. Was his father alive? Was this the world where he was the son they had always dreamed of having? This Ben bears no scar—and his assumption is not that it was never there, but that Rey had touched life into him too. He’s almost craning his neck as if she might appear at any second. _This could have been my life,_ Ben thinks hollowly to himself as the other him lights a saber at his side. The blade is its old sapphire blue hue, crackling like a thunderstorm from its hilt. Ben, for whatever reason, has the sudden urge to cry.

He chokes the feelings down into his throat as the other him speaks.

“Who are you?” There’s no edge to the voice as Ben had been expecting. The man with his face speaks in an even, cool tone that calms as readily as it threatens. This is a man who has never seen the dark, Ben realizes. This is a man who proudly holds the weight of legacy on his shoulders, who does not question his place in this world. This is a man who has never worn the mask or been ripped apart by the girl’s blade. For a moment he can feel the memory of his scar searing across his face, and he welcomes the pain. _Tear me in two, take all of me, I beg of you._

“I think that much is obvious,” Ben quips back easily, and he sounds so much like his father in that instant he is unsurprised with the other man flinches—he himself had the urge to do the same. There is a discipline in him that is not present in his opposite, Ben realizes—a steadiness of constitution which had been learned through years of swallowing pride, of anger that this man had never known. He is all Jedi grace and stature, but there was no suffering behind his eyes that had so often been reflected back to Ben in every mirror. For a moment, he can’t decide if that makes him more deserving of her, or less. He is afraid of the answer.

“What game are you playing at?” The other him asks, extinguishing the blade at his side.

“No game—” Ben explains, “I was thrown out of my own world. I’m merely looking for a way back—for Rey.”

The man in front of him pales. There’s a recognition in his dark irises that had not been in Poe’s. Dameron turns to his Ben then, the question clear on his face, “Who the hell is Rey?”

“How do you know that name?” The other Ben asks instead, voice careful. Ben eyes himself for a moment, from the small part to his lips to the twitching of his fingers.

“You know,” Ben tells himself, “you must know.” The other man’s eyes cut away and he knows that it’s true.

“She doesn’t go by that name here,” is his other self’s answer. Realization begins to dawn across the face of his friend.

“Kira Ren,” Dameron breathes. Ben’s breath seems to catch in his throat. The air feels heavy around him. He staggers where he stands.

“Can I have a moment, Poe?” The other him asks of his friend then, and the man nods slowly, eyes shifting between them both as he leaves. “What is she, in your world?” He questions once the man has gone. There’s a longing in the way the words fall from his lips that Ben recognizes all too well.

“She was mine—if only for a moment,” Ben admits, and his companion’s eyes soften.

“Was she, was she good?” The other man stumbles. Hope is a palpable, tentative thing that hovers in the space between them.

“She was better than any of them,” Ben supplies, and that was the truth, wasn’t it? Even in her anger there was faith. Even in her victory there was mercy. Even when betrayed she showed forgiveness. She was more than the Jedi. More than the Sith. She was the balance that the universe ached to revolve around. All others were mere celestial bodies vying for a place in the night sky of her atmosphere. “I did not deserve her,” he says, and he supposes the words are more to comfort the other man than himself, “but I tried to. Maybe not soon enough—but in the end.”

The other Ben nods in a quiet sort of understanding. But funnily enough he does not correct Ben when he says, “maybe one day I’ll deserve her too.” He does not suggest that it is her who needs to change her ways. He does not imply that she is the one less deserving.

The other Ben, the one who belonged in this world with friends and his mother, the one who had so much but still longed for her, offers him to stay for dinner. A part of Ben wants to accept the invitation, to see his mother’s face or hear his father’s voice, to close his eyes and pretend none of the black stain on his soul had ever happened, but this was not his world. He didn’t belong here, in this happy home.

Ben wonders, when he leaves, if Rey ever felt the same about him—even fleetingly—that one day she might deserve _him_ as well.

*

“What if,” the voice muses as Ben rests for a moment in the edge of everything, shoulders slumped with a sort of exhaustion that feels like it may never leave, “what if you could have a better life? What if, out there, is a girl who misses you just as much, who yearns for you? Wouldn’t that be enough?”

Ben considers it for a moment as his fingers play with the hem of the light robes offered to him by his Uncle all those trips ago. “I’ve never deserved better than I’ve gotten. Just her is more than I will ever need,” he sighs, but his once fiery determination seems to waiver in that moment.

The mother only hums in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got to see a couple different characters in this chapter--don't worry, there will be moments with Leia and Han eventually :) (Also it won't be a /complete/ angst fest the entire time)


	5. Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really gotta stop posting at 2am and actually getting some sleep. It seems like the only time I'm productive though. Thank you so much to all of the lovely people enjoying this sporadic piece of work. I'm not sure how long this is actually going to get (so expect the chapter count to change many times over), but my goal is to get into the 20k range. We shall see :) I wanted to squeeze a little bit of Rey pov in at the end here, so let me know if you enjoyed that--(or if we want to see present Rey pov as well)

She’s close—so, so close.

Ben knows it because he can feel her now. It’s as if his sides had been stitched together where his soul once leaked out from the spaces between each rib. He is whole when he walks into a familiar, damp hut. One he does not quite recognize but feels the ghost of in the back of his memory. She _must_ be near. She _must_ be his. Excitement thrums through his veins and he bursts out into the open mist of night.

Rey’s standing, not too far away, a dark silhouette outlined by starlight as she gazes up into space, and Ben falls to his knees. She was always an angel, always the light that pulled him closer.

She turns at the sound, and Ben lets himself take in her face haloed by the moon as she opens her mouth to speak. Her jaw opens and shuts, and she takes a step closer, considering him.

“You’re really here, aren’t you?” She asks after a moment, hand settling on the light saber at her hip.

“Yes, yes,” Ben is nearly crying now. _He’d done it,_ hadn’t he? He’d found her after all this time, after all these months of searching.

Her voice cuts through the ache of his joy, “You’re not really him, are you?”

“What do you mean?” He asks, and Rey is standing above him now, close enough that Ben can see his reflection in her eyes when he drags his own up to meet hers.

“You don’t have his scar,” she says simply. There’s a twinge of hate, of disgust in the way the words drag themselves out from her mouth, and all the hope that had built up in him the last few moments seems to rush out of him in an instant.

“What year is it?” Ben’s voice trembles, and he’s never felt more alone than he does in this moment at her feet. Rey watches him carefully for a moment, but doesn’t answer. “Please,” he begs, and it’s agony looking into her eyes when she’s staring at him like that—like a creature, “the year.”

“34 ABY,” she tells him, and all the tension in Ben’s body seems to deflate until he is merely a heap of a man on the ground.

“I’m too early. It’s you and you’re here and I’m too early,” Ben is rambling, hands shaking as he considers his bare palms. Anything to avoid looking at her. This must by Ahch-To, he realizes. _Murderous snake. You are a monster._ “I’m so close! So, so close!” He’s practically screaming now, hands balled up into fists. He’s slamming them against the ground with the same hot fury that once flowed through his veins.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Rey starts, kneeling down to him now. Ben lets his arms hang limp at his sides.

“I can’t stay here,” he says instead of offering an explanation, “I’m so close but I’m too early and I’m not going to stand around and wait for him to die so that you can love me.” The words are desperate and pained as they leave his lips. Rey’s hand seems to still in midair from where she was reaching toward him.

“You’re not—from now,” Rey seems to ask, but it isn’t a question. He nods anyways, head bobbing as his dark hair falls into his eyes.

“I should go,” he says, meeting her shadowed, hazel gaze. Ben pulls himself up to stand until he is looking down at her, towering above her in the dark.

“Wait,” she says as he turns, grabbing at his wrist, and it as if lightning courses through him. She was _his._ She would be _his._ He can see her thinking, considering the feeling. “Did I love you?” She asks him then, voice thick with fear and something else—yearning. It should give him hope, that even now, even when she thinks so little of him, Rey can still recognize the oneness in their touch. All it does is deflate him further. So close, but so far.

“I don’t know,” Ben admits, and the truth of the statement settles between them like still water. What would be reflected against the surface, if he looked? He wanted to be what Rey had seen in him that day she shipped herself off to the Supremacy. He wanted to recognize the reflection of himself in her eyes. “I loved you,” he offers softly, “and I thought—maybe, in some world, you might love me too.” The confession dies in the shadows, and he lowers his head. He was too early. Close, so so close, but too early. And maybe, many Rey’s from now he would regret not staying, not waiting, but for now, this wasn’t his place. It’s funny, if he thinks about it hard enough. The only thing he fit perfectly was her—the only place he belonged was in her arms—and even that is taken from him now.

He tugs at his arm and she releases him. It feels distinctly like he’s lost something, when Ben finally pulls away, and he has. Ben returns to the World between Worlds with a quiet puff of breath, and lets himself slump down, head tucked into his knees.

Somewhere, now, Rey is crying. Somewhere, she’s asking another him why he hate’s his father. Somewhere, Rey is trying to find the man she had seen staring back at her with a monster’s face. When they touch hands, she sees his future—and he has the same eyes as the man who told her he loved her.

*

After that night, Ben starts to lose hope.

*

Rey doesn’t recognize the strange man who she comes across in the desert. He’s far too pale to call the sand his home. She had spotted him in the distance, and though it’s usually best to leave weary travelers to their business, the magnet of his being pulled her closer. In fact, after some moments of staring, she runs for him.

“Do you remember me?” He asks as she stumbles up to him, and the question is so soft, so unsure, so full of hope and longing that she wants to say _yes, of course I do._ But even though there’s something familiar in the slope of his nose and the turn of his lips, even though she can look into his eyes and see more than herself standing there, looking back, she doesn’t know him.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says instead, and watches as his face falls, dark eyes going hollow, “should I know you? I should, shouldn’t I?”

“There’s a world where you love me,” he breathes, and there’s a glimmer behind his irises that makes her believe the stranger, because of course, it must be true.

“Why can’t it be this one?” She questions bravely, and she sees how his shoulders drop, for a moment considering, before he shakes his head. He’s tired, Rey realizes, like he’s wandered this desert too many times, and perhaps he had.

“No,” he sighs, pushing one of his giant palms through his long dark locks and she wants to touch him, to hold him, “there’s another me here for you. Maybe you’ll find him one day, in this desert. Maybe he’ll find you. But my destiny belongs to another, and this path is not yours to take.”

He says it as if he’s said it a thousand times, and Rey wonders just how many worlds he’s dug through to find her—the girl with her own face. How many galaxies has he explored, just like this one? How many universes had he crossed in search of her? It makes Rey’s heart flutter and ache—expanding with more feeling than she’d ever known, knowing there might be another him waiting somewhere for her. 

“How will you find her?” She wonders aloud, and he draws his gaze up to her own. She thinks she can see them, the worlds he’s wandered, his black pupils like the expanse of space itself.

“I don’t know,” he admits, voice rough with heat and sand and something else—sadness probably, his throat tight with it, “I’ll pick another door.”

Rey doesn’t know what that means, and she wants to ask. She wants to reach for him and make him stay, this stranger with the name she doesn’t know but with a heart that matches her own. It’s too late, he’s already turning from her, heading back into the depths of the horizon, fading like a mirage in the distance. She can hear him, still talking has he strides away.

“I’m ready for another,” he says, “another door.” There’s a sort of stumbling desperation in the way he speaks, vocal cords wavering like heat lines hovering over sand. And just like that, he disappears. Suddenly dust like the desert around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any Rey's / moments you would like to see while I'm still busy crafting this final story arc?


	6. Alderaan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again! I know a few of you wanted to see a little happy since Ben seems to be losing hope, but this story is gonna last a little longer, so he's gotta fall a little lower. I know, I'm sorry. Don't worry though, some happiness is ahead.   
> Thank you all for reading and commenting! I really appreciate it

“Why don’t you stay?” The voice asks him.

Ben isn’t sure exactly how long he’s been at this whole ordeal—time is relative here anyways. He doesn’t seem to age even as he wanders from universe to universe, moment in time to moment in time, a skipping stone over the still waters of existence. He had stopped bothering counting the days, the months. They all blurred together after all. No, he counted it in Reys.

“I haven’t found her yet,” he answers, and it’s the truth. No matter how many Reys he comes across, none of them look him in the eye like she did. None of them reach for him like they’ve longed for him, like they’ve mourned for him, and so he must keep searching.

“You’ve found her a hundred times over,” the mother responds, “how is one any different from the next?”

“You know,” he says simply, because they’ve been over this too many times and he’s far too tired to have this argument again, “you know.”

“And how will _you_ know, young Solo, when you’ve found the right one? What if you come across some girl much like yours? One who has lost you and one who is longing for your return? How will you know?” The mother asks him, but the words sound more like a challenge as they reverberate through the air.

It’s a good question, one Ben had asked himself many times over. There was no guarantee, was there? But he hoped. He hoped that when he saw her again his soul would tug as if pulled by a thread leading directly to her. Completion. Total unity. A dyad in the force more powerful than life itself. It had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to be enough to pull him back to her.

*

Ben meets the Rey she described three trips later, tucked away on an Alderaan that never fell to the Empire. It was a quiet universe, this one. A universe in which Anakin Skywalker never turned to the dark. A universe in which the daughter of a senator ran away from home with a smuggler. A universe where Palpatine’s granddaughter grew up safe on Naboo and not stranded alone amongst the sand. Ben knew he didn’t belong in a place like this—one marked in peace and love. It reminded him all too much of the destruction he himself had played a part in. When he had arrived in this place, thrown onto a planet he knew was long dead, he thought about turning back immediately, but curiosity drew him onward.

_What if there was a better world?_

It had taken some effort to track her down, but not nearly as much as it usually did. This Rey was well known amongst higher class circles. It had only taken a few questions to figure out where she would be, well known as she is—A reluctant public figurehead with Jedi training. Practically royalty, the both of them, Ben guesses, considering everything. She’s softer, Ben thinks, when he sees her for the first time. She’s not as sharp angled as before, her cheeks are not hollowed out with a kind of hunger that never really leaves you, and Ben supposes life must have been easier here.

He is hovering in an archway of a long hallway overlooking the city, a place she could be found most days, he had heard, studying her from afar as she leans out over the balcony. Her hair is done up in magnificent braids, so much different than the three buns he was used to seeing. Actually, it was much like something his mother would have worn. She is wearing Jedi robes, the kind true Knights wore in the holos he had seen, not the makeshift order Luke had built from the ground up, and although it didn’t seem to fit her, it was at least familiar.

A low breeze drifts down the walkway, and in that moment, she turns to look at him. He sees it, the flash in her eyes of recognition, of yearning, of what he had hoped to see for so long, and it makes him ache. This Rey is not his Rey, but couldn’t she be enough? Couldn’t _this_ be enough? And then she’s falling, knees giving out underneath her as she tumbles to the ground and Ben is lurching forward to catch her, to pull her up into his arms. _Isn’t this what he had always wanted?_

“Ben,” she breathes, and the words fall like a prayer from her lips. He wonders, for a moment, what he must have been to her, but she leans into his touch as if she were afraid he would fade away and he knows, doesn’t he? She’s crying, practically bubbling tears as he pulls her up from the ground, and Ben hasn’t felt this wanted in a long, long time. His fingers linger on her wrist even as he begins to pull away.

“I’m not him,” Ben says, and the words taste sour on his tongue. Not many of the Rey’s he’s met—and there’s been many—have looked at him like a ghost, but every time he has to explain to her the truth of himself, he has to stand there and watch the light dim in her eyes. This time is no different. Her hazel eyes grow glassy and dull, and her hands, which before had still been held out toward him, snake themselves into crossed arms.

“Oh,” she says, and it drops like a stone in the air between them, “you look like—I thought,” she doesn’t finish the thought, shaking her head instead.

“No, you were right,” Ben begins, “I am Ben—just not, I’m not your Ben,” he explains, stumbling a little and dropping his eyes. There’s always a certain amount of shame attached to being the imposter.

“What does that mean?” She asks, studying him intently. Rey seems, for a moment at least, free from the grief that had just overwhelmed her into tears.

“You are—you’re a knight? Have you read the texts,” Ben begins tentatively, and when she nods, he continues, “then you know of the World between Worlds.”

“Yes,” she gasps, as if everything makes sense in that moment, “oh wow. You’re—you’re from a different universe?”

The curiosity in her eyes draws him forward even as the voice in his head that whispers, _she’s not yours, not yours, not yours,_ pulls him back. He can only nod to her in return.

“Tell me everything,” Rey pleads, already leading him around the corner, and when he takes a seat at her table, sunlight streaming in through the window so that she bathes in the gold of it, he does.


	7. The End of a Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally managed to slow down the posting, but have yet to make any /actual/ progress with the story. I've read all of you ideas and they're all pretty good--some of them I had already planned on including myself. So if you suggested something, keep an eye out for some nods to it in later chapters. For now, thanks to everyone who is reading this --somewhat of a mess-- that I have created.

“You’re different than him,” Rey admits once Ben had finished with his limited explanation of his own home world—there was far too much for him to tell, after all. How do you explain something like the Empire, like the First Order, to someone who had never known such turmoil? Still, she had nodded with that cool, Jedi wisdom, as if she understood.

“How so?” Ben asks, leaning forward a bit, forever in orbit around her.

“Less sure of yourself, I think. The Ben Solo I knew was as brave and as brash as his father. He always had the stars in his eyes, you know?” Ben didn’t know, not really, but it did sound a lot like his father. He ached at the thought of the man, of how things could have been different. This Rey was different too. She wasn’t as—tan. There was no familiar smattering a freckles that one develops after a lifetime under the hot Jakku sun. _She_ was no desert rat. Her eyes never shifted to the corner of the room as if she were being watched. She didn’t look around as if each moment was a gift—except, Ben thinks, when she met eyes with him.

“And what about your world?” He wonders aloud. He didn’t usually get this far. Ben rarely ever gets to hear about the life he could have lived. So often he’s off and away as soon as he realizes it isn’t his place, it isn’t his time.

“It’s,” Rey starts, the weight of the single word heavy and stiff on her tongue, as if she is unsure of just how to continue, of just how much to say, “you weren’t—one with the Force here.” The admission was clumsy, but the fact that she starts off talking about him tugs at something inside of his chest, the implication of it clear— _you were my world._

“I guess,” she continues, “that’s why I was so shocked to see you. I thought—maybe, because we were bonded by the force, maybe even though you hadn’t trained in the Jedi ways, you could still find your way back to me, even in death. As a ghost, like the past masters.”

Ben nods but doesn’t interrupt her.

“You wanted to be a pilot, like your father, and so even when you showed sensitivity, your parents didn’t force you into the Order. My grandfather—he wasn’t a good man. Anakin Skywalker struck him down when it became clear he wanted to take over the senate—but he had cloned himself. It was thought—well, it was thought if the child, my father, was raised in the path of the light, he too wouldn’t fall to the same fate. The Skywalkers looked after him as he grew. Eventually, I would grow up alongside you,” Rey explains, “but it wasn’t—even if I pined after you as a child—you were the older brother I never had. I never dreamed you could have seen me as anything else. I guess that’s why I joined the Order,” She stops for a moment then, staring off into the distance as if trapped in a memory.

“If I couldn’t have you, I didn’t want anyone. Anakin and Padme—your grandparents—they got married in secret all those years ago. Marriage wasn’t allowed, you see? Even now it’s taboo, especially to marry someone outside of the Order. So when you—when you told me how you felt, how you had always felt—we were one, you and I,” she was rambling now, the words spilling off her tongue with none of the Jedi poise she had exuded prior, “It was a secret from the Order, but most of our family knew. You had gotten into some bad business one day on a run with your father and you, you didn’t make it back.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben tells her, but it’s a strange feeling to mourn one’s own death.

“It’s been nearly a year now,” Rey explains, voice wavering, “I will move past it.” She changes the subject with a shake of her head, “You were a Jedi, then? Trained in the Force?”

“You could say that,” Ben says, evading the truth. What would she think of him if she knew he had fallen to the dark? Especially in a world like this—where not even his grandfather had succumbed to destiny. The truth of it must have been painted across his face, however, because Rey looks up at him then with searching eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me everything now,” Rey whispers, reaching out with one of her small hands to cover his own, “I know what it’s like—it’s the same when I look into your eyes. I’m searching for him, the pieces of you that are the same. If you have secrets, I understand.” Her voice cracks, and her face appears more open, more vulnerable now than it ever had before, “I—I know I can’t expect you to remain here. This isn’t your world, after all. And—and I know you aren’t him, not really, but if there were any chance—I’d like to know you, like I once knew him.”

Ben’s mind turns over once, twice, rolling the thought around, weighing it against the heaviness of his soul. He couldn’t go on forever. Once, maybe, he would have thought to look for her in the endless expanse of existence, but time is a solid thing, Ben knows. It had built up like a sediment around his heart until his chest grew heavy and his breathing labored. His bones ache from the strain of missing her, but Ben is not as strong as he once had believed. He meets Rey’s eyes again—looking into the hopeful hazel orbs gazing back—and thinks of the mother’s words.

_What if you could have a better life? What if, out there, is a girl who misses you just as much, who yearns for you?_

She could be enough, couldn’t she? This place could be enough.

In the end, Ben did something he told himself he would never do—he stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into it now, aren't we?


	8. Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little blip is pretty short, so I figured I could release it a little earlier than I planned. Just wanted to give you a look into how Ben's Rey is dealing with what happened. So this chapter is from her point of view. Hope you enjoy!

After the battle on Exegol, Rey had—faded. It’s not like she had anyone she could explain it to—how there was a piece of herself missing. One that she hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone. How the emptiness in her chest was taunting her every time she woke to the reminder that Ben was _gone._ She grew quiet, dormant like a tree losing its leaves for winter, still alive under it all but utterly stripped of life. Poe couldn’t meet her eyes whenever his name floated around the Resistance Base. He’d stormed angrily out of too many rooms for her to count. Finn tried to help, tried to understand, but every time she said Ben’s name he’d flinch. It was after the first couple of times that she decided to swallow the memory of him, to keep it locked away inside her chest. It was better for everyone that she forget.

But she couldn’t bring herself to forsake him so completely.

“I like to think he’s looking for me,” Rey breathes quietly, and Rose turns to glance at her. Rose had offered to help Rey with some repairs to the Falcon before her trip to Tatooine, and the pair had worked in near silence up until this point.

“Ben, I mean,” Rey explains, shifting her weight so that the metal floor creaks beneath her, and Rose nods. She doesn’t know much about what happened, no one did, really. But she was one of the few friends Rey had who hadn’t been— _personally victimized_ by the man they knew as Kylo Ren.

“Why do you think that?” Rose asks after a moment, voice slow and even, her focus on tightening a bolt—as if eye contact might break Rey from her thoughts. She was a skittish beast around them, Rey knew. One who had to be approached with caution, palms held out raised and flat against the air.

“I think I met him—once,” Rey says vaguely, the words unsteady and upturned with doubt. She fiddles with a wrench for a moment before continuing, “it could have been Ahch-To messing with me, it could have been a dream.” This, this was the secret she had never told anyone—not even Ben himself. There was a Ben wandering the universe in search of her, a Ben who loved her. Or so she hoped. As the days stretched on between when he had died and when she was struggling to continue on living, her once certain conviction that he would arrive at any moment—that he would appear to her and pull her up into his arms—grew weaker.

“What do you mean?” Rose questions, the edge of her voice stating the obvious— _of course you’ve met him._ She turns to meet Rey’s hazel eyes, the confusion clear in the set of her dark brows.

Rey shakes her head, voice faraway as she speaks, as if the sound was echoing against the emptiness of her insides, “it wasn’t him—not, not the one I knew at least. He didn’t have the scar I gave him. He was on his knees, just gazing up at me in the night like I was his savior, I didn’t understand.”

“ _I don’t understand,”_ Rose shoots back, all of the gentleness that she’d exuded evaporating. Maybe Rey shouldn’t have brought any of this up. Maybe she should just lock him away forever. “I’m sorry,” Rose says then, and Rey exhales sharply, “it just doesn’t seem real, what you’re saying. A different Kyl— _Ben_ ,” Rose corrects quickly, “visited you?”

“It didn’t seem real then,” Rey whispers, suddenly feeling hollower than ever before. She ducks away then, drawing her eyes back to some panel or another that didn’t really warrant her attention. Embarrassment grew in red pools across her cheeks.

“It could have been,” Rose interjects, clearly trying to raise Rey’s spirits, “I mean—what did he say? When you saw him?”

“He asked me the year,” Rey explains, “then he started rambling. Practically falling apart. Going off about how it was _too early,_ how he wasn’t going to wait around for himself to die so that I could love him,” Rey’s throat goes tight then, and she fights back the tears that had started to prick at the corner of her eyes, “then he left, not long after that. I had hoped that maybe—maybe it was real. Maybe, after he died, he was looking for me—whatever that meant. However in the world that would be possible. I hoped.”

Rose nods quietly, and it’s still clear that she doesn’t quiet understand, but she doesn’t try to take this bit of hope away from Rey. Instead, she turns back to a pair of wires.

Rey thinks about the Ben she had seen that night. How the dark had shadowed his eyes so they looked almost black—but there was no danger in his gaze—only desperation, only wanting. He had looked so broken at her feet, and her thoughts had clashed inside of her—the vision of him that she knew did not match the man before her. But he had loved her, and although it didn’t make sense, although she couldn’t even dream to look at him the way he was looking at her, she believed him. She had hoped it was true.

When Ben had ran to her, when he had given his life for her, she had finally recognized the look in his eyes. And when he died, when he faded into dust, she had sat down on the stone floor and waited for him to return. She had searched the room for him, certain that at any moment he’d be there, climbing once again out of the wreckage, or turning the corner—that then she could take him home—but he never came. Rey had let herself cry for a while, before finally pulling herself back up into Luke’s X-Wing.

“Do you have the electrical tape?” Rose asks, reaching her hand out toward Rey.

“Yeah,” Rey answers, letting the thoughts fade back into the quiet of that night, before passing the roll to her friend. She doesn’t mention him again.


	9. Dinner Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I was expecting it to. Writing this chapter was difficult, if only because I had to make a lot of decisions in this chapter about where to go from here without actually getting much payout from those decisions (yet). I actually had to scrap a half written chapter and remake it into this instead, so it took some time. But the update is here now! I hope you enjoy :)

Ben didn’t figure his Rey liked surprises. In the desert, surprises meant danger. Maybe now, a few years removed from her sandy home she would appreciate the odd bouquet of flowers, or her friends coming back from their trip a day early. Ben didn’t figure she’d ever like big surprises. She would probably never be satisfied with the phrase, “it’s a surprise,” in response to, “where are we going?” She would probably never enjoy walking into a room only to have that stormtrooper of hers—Finn?—jumping out from a corner.

She wasn’t his, he knew that. Some days Rey would stare off into space as if she were searching the air for him—the _other_ him. Ben knows there’s moments where he does the same. It’s not perfect, the life they fall into together, but it’s slow and easy, and when Ben holds her at night, he can almost pretend he belongs there. This Rey is not a puzzle piece that slides perfectly into her place in his heart. Instead, she builds a small fire in his ribcage that keeps him warm even when his heart grows cold. This Rey touches him, solid and real, and not the memory he longs for on his worst nights.

He doesn’t feel guilty—not really. Ben supposes there might be something he _should_ feel guilty for, but it’s hard to say you’ve abandoned someone who thinks you’re dead, who hasn’t come looking for you _either,_ now that you mention it. He tries to beat back the bitterness that threatens to poison the thought of his Rey in his mind, but sometimes he fails. Most times, though, he’s able to forget about the loneliness that still pangs deep inside of his stomach.

This Rey loved surprises. _Especially_ the kind that would get your heart beating fast and your mind spinning. “It’s _exciting,_ ” she had tried to convince him, a playful smile twisting up the corners of her lips, and he had caved to her will.

That’s how he was here now, hiding behind the entryway to the dining room, sucking in breaths as Rey asks his _father_ to take a seat at the dinner table across from his _mother_. Han’s voice is the same rough growl as it always was, a constant in all the different that came along with this world. Ben had only been here a week, living inside of Rey’s home, passing in between rooms, searching for some sign of the life that could have been his. It had been Rey’s idea to finally tell Ben’s parents about him.

Ben’s palms are sweating. He rubs them frantically against the legs his black pants. They had belonged to the other him, and Rey had pulled them out of her dresser with a heavy sigh. He straightens the thick collar of his new blue shirt, feeling altogether out of place. How was he supposed to look his father in the eye? _How do you look your father in the eye after you’ve killed him? Will he know? Will he see straight through me?_ Ben tries to calm his thoughts as the scraping of chairs signals the group has finally sat down to dinner.

“Are we having a guest?” Leia asks, and his mother’s voice is as smooth as ever, the same regal confidence painting each word, “there’s an extra place at the table.” This was Ben’s cue.

“Yes, actually,” Rey smiles, and Ben takes a step into the light of the room.

His mother gasps, face going white as she rises sharply from her seat. Han’s fingers twitch at his side as if searching for the blaster that isn’t there. Ben ducks his head half in shame, half in apology. This was always a bad idea.

“What have you done?” Leia is asking, dark eyes blown wide as she swings her gaze up and down the length of him.

Han is just staring, _staring,_ and maybe he can see into Ben’s soul after all. He contemplates, for a moment, the benefits of finding a way to sink into the floor.

“It’s—” Rey starts.

“It’s not him,” Han interjects, rising from his own chair, eyes still boring into Ben. He can’t help but break away his gaze, “I know my son,” his father continues, “and that is not him.”

Ben takes a small step back at the words, shaken by the sudden realization that this might be all he ever is in this world—an imposter.

“No,” Ben says then, finding his voice amongst the roar in his ears, “I’m not your son—not in this world.”

Leia’s face twists deeper in suspicion, and Ben holds up his palms to look less like a threat and more like a friend. In his worst nightmares, this is how she looked at him when he came home. Those nights where he contemplated leaving all of it behind, casting away the dark and returning home. He would always stumble onto her base only to be greeted by her cold, untrusting gaze. Never was he welcomed with open arms, and now, here, even so far removed from his own world, it feels like a confirmation of all that he had feared.

“You’re from another world,” she speaks slowly, the words dragging themselves out one by one from between her teeth.

“Yes,” Ben answers. Han stands stock still in place, eyes contemplative but otherwise quiet and unmoving.

“And did _you_ do this?” Leia is asking Rey now, a bite of venom in her tone.

Rey, seeming to realize that the surprise was not necessarily a good idea after all, shakes her head firmly, “he came to me.”

“I ended up in the World between Worlds,” Ben explains, brave enough to take a step toward the group, “after I—died in my world. I tried to find my way back home, but it has taken quite a while and,” he lets the rest of the sentence die on his tongue.

“And you thought you’d stay here, live your life in his place?” Leia questions. There’s something in her eyes that aches to take him up into her arms, to hug him close and never let him go—because he’s her _son_ after all. Still, there’s a sharp set to her jaw and a firmness in her posture that screams with the anger of replacing the boy she raised.

“Just live,” Ben breathes, “I’ve spent too much time searching for something I may never reach again. It is time I pick a place to stay.”

Han hums to himself, and Leia settles back into her seat. Ben shifts his weight from foot to foot, but he can’t bring himself to join them at the table.

“I’ll let you talk further,” he says instead, ducking out of the room quickly. If Rey calls after him, he doesn’t notice over the sound of his heavy heart thudding in his chest.


	10. Forgiven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know y'all wanted to see an actual /nice/ family moment, so I figured I wouldn't keep you waiting too long for it. That being said, the next chapter might take a little longer. Thank you all for the wonderful comments! I really enjoy reading them.

Ben is off reading an old book in Rey’s study when he hears footsteps behind him. It’s a small room with shelves of ancient texts lining the walls, with a small seating area in the middle that faces out toward a set of double windows on the wall opposite of the open arch entryway. His father lets out a heavy sigh to announce his arrival.

“What are you searching for?” Han asks, and Ben lets his eyes trace down the page in front of him before snapping the book shut. He can’t bring himself to look at the man. Instead, he lets himself sink into his chair a little deeper as the man comes to stand behind him.

“In the book? Nothing, just some casual reading,” Ben quips, fully aware it wasn’t the intention of Han’s question. He’s pleased when the man lets out a low, rumbling chuckle.

“In life, son. What are you tearing through universes to find?” His father restates, his voice low and gentle. It reminds Ben of the man he had stared across from on the bridge of Star Killer base, his hair white with age, his eyes, his shoulders, the set of his jaw tired with it too. He had begged Ben to turn back, to come home. Now, tinged with a similar sort of cautiousness, as if he were prepared to tame a beast, this conversation felt much the same.

“You know,” Ben sighs, it was always the same question. He distracts himself by fiddling with the corners of the pages. He had never been sure of himself, not really. It was so easy to hide behind a mask and a name and play pretend, to not have to look people in the eyes as you betrayed them, as they betrayed you. Here he was exposed with not even his past to act as protection against the penetrating gazes of a family who didn’t recognize who he was behind familiar dark eyes.

“You know how I could tell you weren’t him?” Han asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s speaking again, “it wasn’t because you wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I figured he might not, if I ever saw him again. I was so ashamed for so long about what happened—how he died. I figured he’d be pissed at me too. No, it was everything else. You weren’t mad, you were ashamed. You looked at me like I could never forgive you.”

“I never got the chance to find out,” Ben mumbles, half to himself. It wasn’t true, was it? Han had forgiven him the moment Ben’s saber sliced through his chest. It was Ben who hadn’t forgiven himself.

“She’s different, isn’t she? Just like you are,” Han wonders, and Ben can feel him standing right over the chair now, but he doesn’t dare turn to look.

“Yes,” he admits quietly, setting the book down at his side.

“Then you can’t stay here,” Han says simply, placing a heavy hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“If you don’t want me here, I understand. I’m not him and I’ll never be him, but Rey knows that,” Ben is rambling now, desperate to reclaim himself in the eyes of a man who did not raise him. His body had stilled underneath his father’s touch, foreign and yet achingly familiar, “I’ve spent too long looking for something I’ll never find. Besides, leaving now could kill her.”

“And staying would kill you,” Han states firmly. Ben twists himself around in the man’s grip until he’s looking straight into his eyes. Han’s face softens, and for a moment he is none of the gruff and brash father he usually was, but the man who tucked him into bed on the odd night, who whispered secrets into his ears about the galaxy, who called him ‘kid’ and ruffled his hair, who always came back no matter how many times Ben had been left behind. “I’m not saying this to push you away,” Han whispers, voice barely there, “I’m saying this because no son of mine would give up like this.”

“I’m not your son,” Ben grits back. He’s not sure why he’s suddenly being harsh with the man—but this is what he’s always done, isn’t it? Push people away, challenge them. Even though he is not the man Han raised, his father must know this game, because he doesn’t back down.

“You were. Maybe not in this world, but you were mine,” Han declares, not a hint of doubt in his tone.

“I killed you,” Ben says then, the words falling out of his mouth before he can stop them. Han doesn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, kid,” Han _apologizes,_ and Ben isn’t sure what to make of it. Does Han think it was necessary? That he was the bad guy in this scenario?

“That’s not what I meant—” Ben starts.

“I know what you meant,” Han interrupts, and Ben snaps his mouth closed, “and I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to apologize for?” Ben asks, all the false anger drained from him now.

“I don’t know how I raised you there. If it was the same as I did here—well, I fell short in a lot of ways as a father. In the end, I failed you. If I had been better, well, maybe he would be here, and I would be gone, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” Han sighs, running a tired hand over his face, “Leia still blames me, I know that. I don’t think she’ll ever really recover from what happened. I can’t apologize to him now. But you’re here, ya know kid? And maybe I wasn’t your father, but I can still apologize for whatever he did to make you feel like that was the only way out.”

“Dad—” Ben breathes, the word like a memory on his tongue, and he thinks of his father on the Death Star. He had cast it all away then. He had let himself forgive and be forgiven, but the pain of it had still been there, in the back of his heart. Ben didn’t need to hold the weight of it anymore, the guilt he had carried around long after.

“I know,” Han smiles, a cocky, lopsided grin that makes Ben wish he could start from the beginning.

“I should go,” Ben sighs, standing up from his chair. He turns toward Han and looks down into the eyes of his father.

“You should,” Han says in return. The pair don’t hug, they don’t pull each other up into their arms, even if Ben might wish they would. Instead, they hold gazes in silence for a couple moments longer.

“Should I tell her?” Ben asks, voice quiet.

“If you do, she might convince you to stay,” Han tells him, “God knows I never told your mother when I would be leaving, or else I’d never go.” The admission is accompanied by a short chuckle, and for once Ben smiles at the thought of his father sneaking out to the Falcon at night.

“Thank you,” Ben says finally, and then after a pause, “it’s time for me to go.”

When Ben opens his eyes again, he’s surrounded by doors.


	11. Desire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is far too short and for that I greatly apologize. I'll be pretty busy this weekend, so I don't know if I'll get another chance to update this week, but I'll try to get one out as soon as possible. Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoy :)

“Welcome back, young Solo,” the mother croons, a hint of teasing in her voice, “I feared you might never return.”

There was still defeat in the set of his shoulders; Ben could feel the weight of leaving weighing on him like heavy stones tied to his ankles. There was a certain guilt in never saying goodbye, even if she would understand.

“I thought you wanted me to give up,” Ben bit back, glaring at the empty shadows as if he might find the owner of the voice there. He had been ready to stay, to throw every second of searching away, if it meant he could have _someone,_ even if it wasn’t really Rey. It was wrong, in the long run. It would have been wrong, for both of them—mere wrappings on a wound that would never heal. Ben had wanted for the longest time to feel loved. His parents had cast him away. Luke had given up. It had only been the dark that embraced him—and it was a manipulative love, a cold love, but it still filled him with a sort of wanting that no one else had ever shown him—until Rey.

Ben sighs heavily and collapses down onto the stone floor. He lets his long fingers trace the cracks in the ground. They remind him of the scar that used to cut down his face and into his collarbone. It had been a constant reminder of her touch and her hatred. A constant, warring reality that she was real and that she did not want him. Tearing him apart. She was always tearing him apart. Each rejection lies like a chasm in his mind’s eye. Like how the world had split open underneath their feet when she ran from him in the forest, face cast in flickering blue light. Like how the empty expanse between them only grew when she threw away the galaxy. _Don’t go this way,_ she had begged him. He had been an idiot, then. All that had been erased with the ghosting of her hand against his chest, with the feel of her lips on his. He wouldn’t fail her again.

When Ben thinks of Rey, he still likes to think of her in that moment of the forest. How the red of his saber had lit her irises aflame. She wasn’t afraid of him, not like the others. Not like his own parents when he was young. When she glared at him there was hatred and there was anger, but there was something else too, beneath it all. A piece of her that had seen his deepest secrets, a piece that knew he was scared, too. She had been pure power and fury, burning brighter than the desert sun, and wasn’t it just his honor to bask in that presence? _You need a teacher,_ he had told her. Even then he was waiting for her, arm outstretched, begging for some belonging he only ever felt when she looked him in the eyes.

“I never wished for you to fail, _boy_ ,” the voice hums, and the final word rattles around him like a warning, the implication of it clear. _You’re still just a child, even now._

“How many other Ben Solos have you met?” He asks, taking a moment to study the doors. Surely another him should have wandered through the World between Worlds in search of Rey. Surely he isn’t the only shard of himself stranded in time.

“You, young Solo, are the only one,” answers the mother, and Ben looks up with a start.

“Really?” he questions.

“I have no reason to lie. You are the only version of yourself who perished on Exegol. You are the only Ben Solo who has ever come to visit me,” the words roll off of her invisible tongue. It should mean something, probably, but Ben isn’t exactly sure what.

“I did meet _her_ once. The girl. She didn’t stay with me long,” the mother tells him, and Ben stills at the words.

“Where did she go?” He asks, a sort of desperation puling at his vocal cords. Maybe, out there in the universe, there was a Rey in search of him. Maybe his Rey was looking too.

“She wasn’t yours, why should it _matter_?” The woman taunts, and Ben thinks she is probably trying to make a point that he doesn’t quite understand. He shakes off the thought and begins climbing up the wall further than he’s gone before, eyeing a door made of wide, tan slats of wood, ignoring the feeling of the omnipresent eyes on him. He’s just begun to turn the handle, to step into another world, when he hears her voice call after him.

“I think you learned something, the last time, young Solo. You’re getting closer,” her voice echoes.

Ben pauses in the doorway, cast in white light as he looks back over his shoulder. He doesn’t know how much farther he’ll have to go, how many more worlds he’ll have to find, and for a single, flickering moment he is afraid it will never end. “Closer to what?” He asks, voice barely a whisper.

“To knowing what you _truly_ desire.”

*

When he steps out of the world between worlds, slipping like a thread through the eye of the needle at the center of everything, he finds himself stepping into a world he recognizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, for anyone interested, my tumblr is soloredeemed


	12. A Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just post a chapter this weekend after saying I wouldn't? Yes. Is it because I worked really hard to finish it before I go radio silent the next couple of days? Also yes. This is another short one, but I promise... PROMISE the next chapter will be longer. Thank you all for reading! I really enjoy your comments :)

For Rey, time stretches on like a cruel joke. She had gone to Tatooine to bury the past, to bury Ben too. She couldn’t keep holding on to false hope that suggested he might arrive at any moment. She had to stop searching over her shoulder for the sight of him, gazing at shadows and misty desert mirages. She was stronger than that. So many years she had been alone on Jakku, waiting for her past to return to her. It had been Ben who told her to let go of it, to move on. She likes to think he would tell her to do the same now, with him.

She spends a week at the old Lars homestead, fixing the broken Vaporators and quenching her thirst with the meager bits of moisture that collect at the bottom. She had been used to thirst. It had once been her constant companion—tongue always aching for the last droplets of water hiding at the bottom of her canteen. But with the Resistance, the feeling had finally left her. She hadn’t been dry down to her bones in so long, now that she’s hit with it again, it feels like her skeleton is made of sand, and her skin is wrapped with heat. It had washed over her much like the wave of loneliness that struck after Ben. It wasn’t a new feeling, it was familiar. But she had spent so much time thinking she would never have to feel that way again, it had hurt all the more when she finally did.

Rey tries not to think of Ben here, pushing away the thoughts of him standing dark and broad on the bridge at Star Killer Base, his eyes flashing as he tells his father he can never go home. _Why?_ She wants to ask him now, under the quiet night sky. Stars paint themselves against the atmosphere, the dusted cosmos spread out above, taunting the little desert rats who would never know anything different. She had been that once, watching ships fly off into space with the knowledge that she could never leave. _Why couldn’t you go home, Ben? Did whatever chain me to Jakku chain you too?_

These are questions, Rey supposes, that she’ll never find the answer to. She decides then, the night chill finally seeping into her skin, to leave the memory of him behind here too. Everything they were or could have been. It was time to start living again.

When she returns to the base—now a headquarters for rebuilding a galaxy in turmoil more than anything else—she smiles for the first time in a while. Finally free from the thirst he had left behind in her. He was still there, of course—would always be a part of her—but he had taught her how to move on once, and she could do it again.

Finn welcomes her back with a broad grin and a tight hug.

“Feeling better?” He questions, eying her closely.

“Yeah,” Rey tells him, the word leaves her like a sigh and for the first time in a long time it’s a genuine answer, not an evasion of the truth, “a lot better, yeah.”

*

When Ben opens this door, he finds himself in a familiar room. Some ways from the entrance of the little hut sits an older Luke Skywalker, hair going white at the temples. He’s dressed in familiar master’s robes, the same as he’d worn when Ben was under his care. The man drags his eyes up the length of Ben, and for a moment, there’s a glimmer of something behind his gaze.

“Ah, you again,” the man hums, voice even but tinged with mirth, “I was wondering if I’d ever see you in this place again. So many doors—one’s bound to end up in the same world twice.”

Ben scrunches his brow in confusion, not really sure of what the man was referring to. How many worlds had he walked into now? How many Reys?

“It must have been some time for you,” Luke says then, “to forget the trip you made here. You are no longer wearing the robes I gifted you.”

Ben glances down at his blue shirt, and then quickly scans the room. It was Luke’s hut at the Temple, of course he recognized it, but there was something more. Luke’s words fall into place slowly in Ben’s mind. Meaning is pulled from them eventually, and once it is, realization floods through his veins.

“Is she still here?” Ben asks, but he already knows the answer. Of course she is. Of course.

“See for yourself,” Luke smirks, just as Ben is bursting out of the hut and into the wide open expanse of Luke’s Temple.

Young children scurry about their day at his ankles, but Ben pays them no mind except to weave through the masses toward the hum in the Force he feels dragging him forward. It had been so long, so long since that first trip, so long since he’d left the girl with the sandy hazel eyes behind. He’s not sure why he’s so excited, why he’s so eager to see her. Maybe it’s the familiarity of it, of finally seeing someone who really knows _him,_ and not the version of him they wish he was. In an instant, he hears a hint of her voice on the wind.

“Just like that, yes, now widen your stance.” It’s a familiar, bell like sound that has him rushing forward toward the training grounds, where young padawans are armed with rods instead of sabers. His eyes blow wide at the sight of her, smiling down at the children, hair falling over her shoulders as it had been the day he’d asked for her hand for the first time. She moves slowly, flowing like water or a cool breeze, before turning toward him. Ben’s breathing is heavy when she finally meets his gaze. There’s a question in her eyes for only a second, just a moment, and then she smiles. It’s a small, wonderful thing and Ben wants to cup it in his palms, to keep it with him forever.

“You came back,” she says, and Ben nods emphatically. He’d come back—come back to see his first little Rey and her bouncing buns and freckled nose, come back to see if he had actually done some good for once in his life, come back to see if it had meant anything, any of it. If you could really change your fate.

Yes. He came back.


	13. Lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am the kind and gracious god of this fanfic, this chapter is nearly twice as long as the last. Thank you, thank you, hold your applause. You may have noticed I've changed the chapter count, it may change again, we'll just see what happens. Thank you so much for the wonderful response to my last chapter, I hope you enjoy!

Rey shoos the children away then, most of them casting confused glances in Ben’s direction, but he pays them no mind. She’s grown now, familiar features the same as every other Rey he’s come across, but this one smiles when she sees him, and it’s a smile that’s meant for him and him alone—not some other Ben from some other place in time.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Rey says, sitting down on a short stone wall and patting the space next to her. Ben takes the offered place at her side.

“I never thought I would return,” he says simply, and the silence that follows the statement is a comfortable one. Both of them lost in thought about all that has transpired since their fateful meeting all that time ago.

“I was so mad at you,” Rey whispers after a moment, and Ben snaps his head around to look at her, “for the longest time. You abandoned me here just like my parent abandoned me on Jakku.”

“Luke told me, when I left, that you would be angry. I couldn’t stay—” Ben starts, but Rey cuts in quickly.

“I know,” she sighs, “I didn’t understand it then, still don’t really, but I learned to make peace with it after a while. The Jedi way, you know? I had some help, too, someone with a similar sort of anger in his core.” Her mouth twitches in a smile and Ben thinks he gets her meaning. He follows the direction of her gaze out into a field not too far off, where another him is wrangling stray padawans for their afternoon meal. He looks light, like there was no weight pulling him back into the earth, and Ben secretly wishes he could feel that way too. He watches himself for a moment, wondering if the other man’s eyes will ever wander in their direction. They don’t, and he turns to herd the younglings away.

“I’m not him,” Ben blurts out suddenly, and he feels like he’s back on Alderaan, looking into the eyes of a woman who loved him and breaking her heart, breaking his own. He’s surprised when Rey turns back to him, a glimmer in her eyes. He’s mesmerized by the color in the light, like the swishing tall grass at his ankles, a mix of green life and taupe death set alight by the sun’s rays. Ben wonders vaguely if all the prophecies were wrong, if Rey truly was the balance, as if the fate of the universe rested inside of her very heart. He thinks it just might.

“You never were,” Rey chuckles lightly, and Ben furrows his heavy brow, confused. “I didn’t recognize you at first—here,” Rey elaborates, glancing back out to the broad shape of a man growing smaller in the distance, “he was so much younger than you, still just a boy—although he would tell you otherwise. You two were similar—like maybe you could have been him once, or maybe one day he could grow to be you—but you were never the same. You were never him. Over time I learned the truth of it—what little Luke would tell me and the rest I pieced together on my own. I don’t know why you did what you did, why you came to me on Jakku, or even why you came back. I was so angry, you see? I thought I mattered to you. I thought, this man wants to take me to someplace better. This man cares. I thought so highly of you—and then you left.”

“And you learned I’m not the good guy. That he is. He’s the one who never—I fell, you see, to the dark and he never—” Ben begins, voice harsh and ashamed.

“No,” Rey states firmly, “no, look at me, that’s not what I mean. Let me finish, Ben, please.”

It’s the first time she says his name out loud, and it silences his objections. There are no ghosts behind the name, no misconceptions, only him. He exists to her as exclusively himself, and the feeling that reality strikes through him is so overwhelming he has to swallow the ache growing tight in his throat.

“There was such a weight to you, when I first saw you. I didn’t understand it—some man, clearly not from the desert, with the eyes of a man who had lived with nothing his entire life but remained a fighter. Determination, desperation, _hope._ Beneath it all you were _hoping_ for something just like I was. You _wanted._ For a small, fleeting moment, I though maybe you wanted me.”

“I did,” Ben says.

Rey shakes her head slightly, “no, you didn’t,” the words come out soft, strained, as if even now the hurt still lingers. “We are made of our choices. Each one takes us down a different path. You’re from a different universe, where choices changed you.”

“Like mine change you—” Ben interrupts, and Rey huffs in a gentle annoyance.

“No. You gave _me_ the choice to come with you. My choice changed me. You just gave me the options,” she explains.

“What, so you’re saying it’s my fault I fell to the dark? That my choices doomed me?” Ben asks, voice tinged in frustration.

“Just listen to me, stubborn man,” the words are hard but she’s still smiling at him, “what I’m saying is that in the end, you made the right ones. You’re not him—but you don’t _have_ to be. _I_ certainly never needed you to be. I’m sure she doesn’t, either.”

“I—”

“I know you’re looking for her. I know. You must be. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know why, but out there is another me you’re so desperate to find that it rolls off of you in waves,” Rey tells him, “I know you think you’ve done something wrong. I know you think you’ve done so much bad that there’s no turning back, but you have nothing to be _redeemed_ for, Solo. No one needs to grant you absolution. Don’t go tearing apart galaxies to find her, just so you can be told you’re worthy again. Your choices have _already_ redeemed you. Darkside or not, you chose to save a little girl stranded in the desert. You chose to love her enough to leave. All you have to do now, is choose to forgive _yourself_.”

“How?” Ben asks, and the word is a weak, strangled thing falling form his lips.

“Let go,” Rey breathes, “let go of all the things you can’t change.”

“I don’t think I can,” Ben mumbles, dropping his head to study the deep lines of his palms. How long had he been the bad seed? Too much like his grandfather? Too wild, too brash, too unhinged? How could he leave behind all the wrong? Ben didn’t _deserve_ to be forgiven. He didn’t deserve to forgive himself. After everything he’s done?

“Rey!” A familiar voice calls out, and Ben is looking up into his own eyes once again. The other man pauses for a moment, his long strides breaking, but he’s soon out of his startled state and charging forward once again.

“Finally got a break from the kiddos, I see,” Rey teases, tugging at the man’s large fingers until he’s standing straight in front of her. He pushes a gentle kiss into her forehead and Rey smiles softly to herself. Ben tries to ignore how hot his ears are and is thankful for the length of his hair hiding the red tips from view.

“I see you have a visitor,” The other Ben quips, eyes dragging over to study him.

“He isn’t staying long,” Rey says then, before Ben can get a word in edgewise, “but I think you two should chat before he goes.”

Then Rey is slinking off from her place atop the wall, fabric scraping lightly against the stone, and slipping away from the two men.

“I’m glad I got to see you again, Ben,” Rey throws over his shoulder. She’s already heading back toward the temple before he can even say goodbye.

The other him is leaning with his hip against the low wall, watching her go when he speaks, “you didn’t have her, like I did, did you?”

“Is it that easy to tell?” Ben asks, shifting in place.

“You look at her like you’re a sunflower and she’s the sun and you can’t help but turn you’re head to her. Like you’re a single drop of water but she’s the whole sea. I guess I should thank you, really, for bringing her to me all those years ago. She told me about you, how you plucked her up from the desert and threw her into the stars,” the man tells him.

“It wasn’t as selfless as she’d made it sound. I don’t think I could have lived with myself if I had let her stay there,” Ben admits. All Rey had to say about making the right choices, he still couldn’t bring himself to forgive.

“All the same, really. Thanks. I don’t know where I would have ended up without her,” the other man sighs, and it’s almost whimsical, like he’s entranced with her even after all their years together, as one. It puts a bitter taste in the back of Ben’s mouth.

“With Snoke,” Ben bites out, “with the Knights of Ren, with the First Order. You would have killed your father. You would have watched worlds burn.” There’s a part of Ben that wants to startle his other self, who wants to hurt him, to make his conscience weigh a little bit more. The only man only hums in return, and Ben deflates.

“She didn’t save me, you know?” The other him is saying now, and no, Ben doesn’t know. Rey had saved him, she had believed in him, had pulled him up for air when he had been drowning in darkness. She had seen him when no one else had. “She was—well she was everything, is everything, but she didn’t make my choices for me. She was so young, and we were so close. She followed me everywhere—you see? And if I had asked her—if I had let her come with me, to run away to Snoke—she would have come. In the end I had to pull myself out of the dark so that the world could be a better place for _her,_ you know? She didn’t save me, she made me want to stay.”

“I think I understand,” Ben whispers, and he thinks of his father. _I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it._ He thinks of Rey, _forgive yourself, let go,_ “but I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

Then, as if an echo of a memory, the other man says, “ _you do_.”

*

“Did you find it?” The voice questions as Ben appears back in the little stone spiral. It's strange how he feels. He's gained a newfound determination, after all this time, all this exhaustion, he is finally made anew. 

“Find what?” Ben asks in return, although he already thinks he knows the answer.

“What you were looking for. Did she have your answers?” The mother pushes. Ben wonders why she cares so much, what it is she gets out of all of this, but he’s too tired to think on it.

Ben nods softly instead, head bobbing, “I think so.”

“So what is it, young Solo. What do you truly desire?” She wonders aloud.

“To be happy,” he sighs into the shadows, “to be loved.”

“And what else?” The voice asks. Ben thinks she probably knows this, too. Yet she’s leading him on as if he were keeping a great secret.

“It is not something I want, it is something I need,” he answers, already searching the walls for his next door. He likes a hard metal one about ten rows up, he wonders if it will open with an airlocked _shhck_.

“To be forgiven?” The mother urges, and Ben is climbing, climbing up toward his next door.

“To forgive,” he says finally.

The voice lets out a satisfied rumbled, “Ah, young Solo, you _have learned_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noooooow we're getting places


	14. Admissions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually really entertaining to write. While it isn't quite as long as the last one, it is still one of the longer chapters so far. Ben Solo is a mess in this one, and I love it. I hope you enjoy it too :)

Once Ben has reached the sleek metal door, he props himself up against it, letting his head rest against the cool surface. “You said another Rey came through here once,” Ben sighs, brushing some stray dirt from his pant legs.

“I did,” the mother acknowledges, “but she was not yours.”

“I know,” Ben breathes, leaning back, eyes closed. It’s been so long since he’d last slept. Not since the week he spent on Alderaan. Existence was strange here, in this place outside of time, but Ben felt his tiredness deep in his bones now. He would rest for a moment; the universe could spare him that.

“You stumbled into her world once. I do not believe you had the chance to meet,” the voice continues, and the words snap Ben out of his exhaustion. He sits up, ramrod straight and suddenly awake.

“What do you mean?” He questions, “which Rey?” Ben is digging through all of the universes he’s seen, like trying to pull her memory from a deck of cards.

“She didn’t go by that name there,” the voice supplies, and realization pools like a cool thing in his stomach, “not from anyone’s lips but yours.”

“What happened to her?” Ben asks quietly, though he is sure he already knows.

“She joined another you on Exegol, of course. Laid down her life so that you might live, and then came to visit me. She didn’t stay long, that one. Then again, she had always known what it was she truly desired,” the mother explains.

Ben wrinkles his brow at her words, “which was?”

“Belonging,” she answers, the word tumbling down the walls around him, “a home.”

“And?” Ben presses, needing to know, needing to hear it from the mother herself.

“You.”

*

When Ben steps through the metal door, which, to his overwhelming pleasure does slide open with a satisfying _shhhck,_ he finds himself in a familiar place. One he had stumbled into a few times now. The resistance base was a thrown together mess in the woods as their ranks hid out like criminals, but there was always a sort of comfort there that the First Order had failed to provide. Their bunks were cold, sterile things—here, well, it was almost homely. Ben sits himself down on the edge of a spare bunk, one that appeared out of use tucked away in the corner, folding his body onto the mattress, and closing his eyes once again. Tired. He was so, so tired. Surely if he fell asleep for a moment, that would be alright.

He wakes to a small voice at his side.

“Ben?” Rey’s voice chimes like bells against his ear.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, still groggy and half-dreaming, as he rolls to the other side of the bed. The out of it part of himself thinks she might like to join him, that he’s hogging the covers, that his giant frame is taking up too much room—that it always has. The Rey he knew on Alderaan had teased that it was his mission in life to be as large as the mattress, so as sleep continues to call for him, he makes room. “You’ve got a spot now,” he sighs, eyes still closed and face still smashed against the pillow.

“No that’s not—Ben,” Rey hisses again, a little more urgent this time, and the distress in her tone makes Ben pull himself up, blinking against the light of the room, “what are you _doing_ here?”

“ _Kriff_ ,” he huffs, and in his fluster to stand Ben practically tumbles onto the floor, “ow.”

“Are you alright?” Rey asks gently, and Ben nods as he pulls himself up to his full height. “Good, that’s good,” Rey says, breathy and uneven, her tiny fingers playing with the leather band at her wrist. “You’re actually here, right?” She starts again after a moment, and Ben seems to realize what it is he should have been doing from the beginning.

“Oh, yes—oh, ah. Sorry, let me—” Ben is flustered, a mess really. All of his years of composure and false certainty seemingly fade away. First, he had mistaken her for what—another her? Another Rey that he slept with, nose tucked into the crook of her shoulder? Then he had ended up with his face on the floor. He was anything but his mother’s grace in that moment—and much more like his father than Ben would ever care to admit. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his scrambled, sleep-deprived brain, “what year is it?”

Rey scrunches her brow, her little freckled nose wrinkling in such a way it makes his knees a little weak, “34 ABY—the uh, the battle of Crait was a month ago,” she offers, voice a little unsure.

“Oh,” Ben deflates, shoulders dropping. Even then, studying her, Ben doesn’t think she’s the right one. Whatever universe he’s in must be extremely close to his own, but the bond doesn’t sing in the same way it had on Ahch-To all those trips ago. He takes a fleeting sort of comfort in that fact—that he’s not too early, he’s just not in the right place at all.

“When are—when are you from?” Rey asks, seeming to piece together the fact that this Ben is not the same one she’d walked away from a month ago, red salt sticking to her heels.

“35 ABY—adjacent. I’m not from your universe,” He explains slowly.

“Oh,” Rey breathes, mirroring his own reaction not moments before.

“I’m trying to find my way home,” he continues carefully, and Rey nods quietly in return, “you see—I’m pretty sure in my world everyone thinks I’m dead. But I’m not—at least not really, obviously, because I’m here—” he pauses for a moment, and sighs deeply, sitting back down on the edge of the bed and running one of his large hands through his hair, “I’m usually a lot better at this part. It’s just—been a while and I was so very tired, and you certainly caught me off guard. You must think I’m crazy,” he looks up at her then, just to be sure. She’s staring at him wide eyed and a little confused. “Yes,” he acknowledges, “you definitely think I’m crazy.”

“You’re not—I don’t—I’m not sure what’s happening,” Rey admits finally. Her hazel eyes are watching him cautiously. “The last time we talked, we weren’t on the best of terms. I came to you—you killed Snoke and then—”

“And then I asked you to join me and you refused. It was the same in my world. I’m not sure what changes for you, I’m not sure it has yet. All I know is this isn’t my universe, and I really must be going,” Ben says quickly.

“Can’t you—Ben, please. Just stay for a moment. Explain what’s going on,” Rey pleads, fingers wrapping lightly around his wrist. Her touch is electric against his skin.

“I can’t say much. I died and woke up in the World Between Worlds, and I’ve been searching universes endlessly trying to get back to my own,” he tells her.

She ducks her head low, releasing his arm, before studying the palms of her hands intently. “Why is it so important to you?” Rey asks quietly.

“I think you know,” Ben answers, voice low. He doesn’t look her direction. Instead, his gaze remains set straight ahead at the wall.

“I need you to say it, Ben. I need to know if it’s true,” she begs him, voice strained.

His head bobs slowly, “I’m trying to get back to you.”

“Right,” she says, voice rough.

When he had offered his hands all that time ago—years for him now, perhaps—Ben had thought he had made his intentions explicitly clear. He and Rey were to rule the galaxy _together,_ side by side as _one,_ as it always should have been. Now though, looking at the uncertainty on Rey’s face, of the way her hands trembled, and her shoulders sagged, Ben realizes that like his father, he was no poet.

“I should have told you,” he offers, “I should have made it clear what I wanted, what I had always wanted. I know that it wasn’t me, not really, but if it is any consolation.”

“All I ever wanted, Ben Solo, was for you to come away with me. I thought maybe, maybe I would be enough to make you abandon whatever need for power had turned you astray however many years before. I guess I didn’t understand then. It was never power. You felt like you could never go home. I know that now—if I had realized it then, maybe I would have asked you to run away, to leave it all behind. So long as the First Order had fallen, so long as the galaxy was safe, why did anything else have to matter?” She whispers.

“It didn’t. Nothing mattered but you. I was just too blind to see it then,” Ben tells her, voice soft. He thinks of the way Rey gazed at him on Exegol, eyes wide and smile wider. How his name sounded like a prayer as it fell from her lips. Nothing else had mattered then, only her.

“One day you can tell her that,” she hiccups, and Ben realizes that Rey is swiping stray tears from the corner of her eyes.

“I will,” he promises, and for the first time in a while, he truly believes he will make it home, that he will see his own Rey again.

“I understand why you did it,” Rey says, and Ben’s head snaps toward her, “why you killed your father. I didn’t at the time, not even after you explained it to me, but I understand now. There was always two of you, swimming around in that head. I don’t mean literally—but there was always a part of yourself that believed you didn’t deserve to be saved, not just that you couldn’t be, but that it wasn’t worth it. You were wrong, you know? You deserve so much more than what the world gave you. But when your father offered, when he begged you to come home—you didn’t kill him because you hated him, you killed him because you hated yourself.”

Ben is practically shaking now, his chest tight with the truth of her words.

“Don’t hate yourself, Ben,” she breathes, taking her hand and letting it ghost across his face where his scar should have been, “please.”

“I don’t know how not to,” Ben tells her.

Rey nods then, “I know.”


	15. Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, I had a rough week but I was finally able to get this down. Thank you so much to the wonderful response to last week's chapter. I can also, officially announce that we have hit the 20k mark, which if you've been following this for a while now might know was my word count goal, so that's fun! We're almost in the home stretch now! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy :)

When Ben was young, really young, his mother used to have him sit crisscross on the ground in front of her so that she could braid his hair. Nothing complicated or intricate, just small little rows of braids and twists that pulled the stray strands from his eyes. His father would scoff and shake his head every now and then when he walked into the room, but he never protested aside from a flippant “he’s a _boy_ , Leia,” thrown over his shoulder on occasion . It was as if the man knew that it meant something to her, and no matter what sense of defiant masculinity might motivate him to do otherwise, he could not take the simple joy from her.

Ben had asked her once, as her nimble fingers raked through his dark strands, why she enjoyed it so much.

“It keeps me connected,” she had whispered against his ear. Ben liked that—liked how it sounded as if each braid were a rope that tied him to her.

“To what?” He had asked her, a curious glimmer in his eyes. She had smiled at him and pressed a kiss down into the crown of his head.

“To my family, my heritage,” she explained, voice a little watery.

“I thought I was your family—and dad, and Uncle Luke,” Ben huffed, confused. He was a stubborn child, and yet he always managed to sit still for her.

“You are, but it is important we remember those who came before us, that we honor them in all that we do,” Leia said softly. She didn’t tell him that family was something you chose. She didn’t tell him how she had forsaken her own father for the one who adopted her. She didn’t tell him the truth of his heritage. He didn’t know until he was staring down the truth in a holo and his mother was pushed from the Senate. He understood then, why years after he’d outgrown her braids, she would look at him with a hardness to her gaze. She would say that Ben had too much of his grandfather in him. She would shun him for being too much like the family she would rather forget, instead of the linage she chose to remember.

It was something Ben could never forget—the look in his mother’s eyes when she sent him away, swirling with shame and the secrets she could never bear to tell.

*

Ben shifts in his spot next to Rey as the doors fly open. Whoever he might have expected to charge through the doors—a pilot back from a reconnaissance mission, one of Rey’s friends come to find her—his own mother was not one of them.

Rey’s breath hitches as if caught doing something she shouldn’t be, and she scrambles to her feet quickly at the sight of _General_ Organa, her greying hair braided in a tight crown at the top of her head.

“General,” Rey starts, but Leia waives a hand to silence her.

“I see we have a visitor,” Leia breathes, raking her eyes over Ben. There’s a gleam of curiosity behind the gaze, somewhat akin to that which he’d seen in Luke’s eyes the first time they’d crossed paths.

“It’s not—” Rey starts to explain, and Leia shoots her another, softer look this time.

“I know, my girl. I would recognize my own son anywhere—and this one, while similar, does not feel the same,” she explains, voice even. She’s staring at Ben again, taking slow steps forward until she’s standing in front of him, “would you give us a moment, Rey?”

Rey nods quickly, only glancing at Ben once before escaping.

Ben moves to stand, but his mother is already settling down into where Rey had been seated only moments prior. He lets out a nervous puff of breath instead and avoids her eyes.

“What are you doing here?” She questions, and although Ben is turned from her, he can still feel her gaze on him.

“I died,” Ben says simply, as if it is some sort of explanation that he knows it’s not.

She hums quietly in acknowledgement, as if it actually meant something to her. He doesn’t expect her to say what she does when she finally opens her mouth to speak.

“I trained with Luke, for a while. I never told you—in this world. Wherever or whenever it is you’re from, I don’t know, but here—” she begins.

“Never,” Ben interrupts, snapping his head to look at her, the surprise evident in the edge of his voice.

“Right,” she continues shakily, and suddenly all of the outward confidence she had been known to project fades away, “I was going to be a Jedi, like him. I had a vision, as most young Jedis do, I would assume. Of you—you weren’t even born yet, but just looking at you—at him,” she corrects quickly, “I knew you were my son. You died, and somehow it was my fault. I knew if I continued down that path it would be your doom and so I abandoned the Jedi ways. I went back to what I was good at. I guess even then I failed you.”

Ben stays silent at her side.

“I did a lot wrong, I think, in raising you. You were always so angry, I could never understand—” Leia begins.

“I wasn’t always angry,” he whispers, voice rough.

“No—no not always. But it got worse, as you got older. I kept wondering, where did my sweet little boy go? The one who talked for weeks about the blue butterflies he had seen on a trip with his dad. The one who would sit and let me braid his hair,” she sighs, voice hollow.

“I was a child,” Ben tries.

“I know.”

He wants to take the words as they were—an apology—but years of hurt and abandonment twist low in his stomach at the sound of them, and fire rises bitter in his throat.

“I didn’t know any better—clearly you weren’t even there enough to teach me,” the last words come out laced in venom. Ben regrets it, for a moment, when he sees the hurt flit across her face.

“I know,” his mother says. Somehow, the answer does more harm than good, and he finds himself unable to hold his tongue.

“You wanted to hide from you past so much, that it included hiding from me once you   
realized—” the façade of anger drains away from his words, leaving behind only pain.

“Ben, I know. I’m sorry,” Leia breathes. She looks so small, so frail. What had happened to the woman she used to be? When did the fight leave her?

“Isn’t it too late for that?” Ben asks, voice soft. He’s a child again, at her side.

“Maybe, probably. What’s done is done, Ben. I can’t change it. But don’t think there isn’t a moment where I don’t regret it—there wasn’t a moment where I stopped loving you. You were my _son,_ Ben,” Leia is rambling now, eager to make up for whatever it is she never got to say.

“Am,” Ben states, the word a single staccato.

“What?”

“I _am_ your son. I’m still alive. Maybe it’s not _me_ specifically, but he’s still alive here to,” Ben explains.

“I just misspoke—” Leia tries, but Ben shakes his head harshly in return.

“No, you didn’t. It’s easier for you, to pretend like your son is gone, is dead. Just like it was easier for you to pretend that Anakin Skywalker wasn’t Darth Vader, and that he wasn’t your father. It’s easier for you to omit the pieces of me that you didn’t like, because then you don’t have to act as if they’re somehow a reflection of your own character. I just needed someone to _love_ me, mom. Someone to look at me and see me. When did you stop seeing me?” Ben’s eyes are locked with hers now. They’re the same, fuzzy brown shade as the woolen bedsheet, and he’s imploring her, begging her to notice him now.

“I didn’t,” she protests.

“You did.”

“I’m sorry,” Leia offers

“I know,” Ben sighs, body deflating. That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? His parents were never really parents. They were war heroes, sure. Legends, definitely. But raising a child wasn’t the battlefield they treated it as. Ben drags one of his large palms down his face before dropping it to his side, letting out a heavy breath of air, and straightening his shoulders. He had to grow up, to let go. “And I’m not say what happened was your fault—what I become,” he says, and maybe it’s the first time he’s admitted it out loud. The words feel strange inside of his mouth, “I may have acted like a child, but at some point, I became a grown man, and I made choices. I could have walked away—and it probably would have ended badly, but at least then—” He doesn’t finish the thought, instead, the words die on his tongue unsaid. “It’s just so tiring—to walk through life like this. With the weight of everything I did on my shoulders. I’m just so tired. I don’t want to be tired anymore. I couldn’t—I can’t change what happened.”

“Then don’t be,” Leia tells him, reaching out with one of her small hands to touch his own.

“It isn’t that easy.”

“It really is,” she corrects, “it won’t ever leave you—what you did or how you feel about it, but everyone can change. You can make choices from here on out that help you heal. It will never—make up for what happened, but Ben, at least it’s something.”

“I’ve been trying to be—better lately. I died—I died trying to be better,” he admits quietly, “I’ve been trying to find my way home but, well I’m pretty sure it’s obvious how well that’s going,” the words come out in a tired chuckle.

“Maybe that’s why you were given a second chance,” Leia offers.

“Maybe,” Ben sighs, staring at some point on the grey wall.

“Would be an awful shame to waste it,” she says lightly.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “it would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been soooooo patient, so I extra special promise you that something very exciting happens in the next chapter.


	16. One Door More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eek. Guys, I'm excited for this one. WE ARE SO CLOSE. I wanted to thank you all for being with me on this crazy journey. I honestly had no idea where I would take this fic when I started, and now that we're nearing the end I'm really happy with how it is turning out. It isn't perfect, and my only sometimes well-written but mostly sub-par writing can attest to that, but this was a pretty wild endeavor all around, so thank you for reading and commenting and subscribing and bookmarking and leaving kudos and all those other things that you do that let me know you're enjoying it, I really appreciate it. Without further ado--the very last door.

“Ah, young Solo, back again,” the voice greets him when he appears in the World Between Worlds. There’s a smugness in her tone, a sort of overbearing knowingness that makes him quirk his eyebrow in response. He can almost hear the smirk in her words.

“Exciting, I know,” Ben deadpans in return, scuffing the heel of one of his large shoes against the ground. He had left quickly after the conversation with his mother, and his stomach was still in knots. It had meant something, he thinks, not just forgiving her but no longer blaming her. He had spent so much of his life feeling cast away, and maybe a lot of that was on her, but his choices weren’t. Ben works his jaw, pressing his lips together tightly.

“And how did this trip go?” The mother asks, and Ben is doubly confused. Firstly, because she has never had to ask before—always seeming to know what happened before he could even sort it out in his own mind. Secondly because of the suggestive note to the question.

“I don’t understand,” Ben begins uncertainly. He hasn’t ever gotten used to it, really, addressing a voice without a face. He’s never sure quite where to look. This time, though, he’s standing in the center of the tall spiral, staring up as if she were looking down on him. He has the odd sort of feeling that maybe she is, in this moment. He can feel her invisible eyes stronger than ever before.

“But you _do,”_ she chimes in return.

Ben sputters for a moment, stumbling over his own tongue, “I don’t—”

He is cut off by the sudden appearance of a figure in front of him. She’s draped in a grey, almost gauzy fabric that hangs from her like the light curtains that used to hang in the parlor window of his childhood home. Her hair is sleek and black and it falls well past the small of her back. Her eyes are deep blue pools that seem to implore him in silence. Her face is long and thin, but there are not sharp angles that would make the shape seem menacing. It isn’t what he pictured, she isn’t what he pictured, standing in front of him she looks— _human._ He thinks for a moment that this must not be her true form, that she is merely appearing to him this way.

“Ask me,” she interrupts, and the mother’s voice is suddenly softer, kinder in a way she had never truly been before. She takes a step toward her, and he takes a cautious step back.

It’s because of this change that Ben pauses for a moment, considering the words quietly, before finally opening his mouth to speak, “ask you what?”

“Ask me, how did that girl find her way out so quickly? Surely you’ve been here long enough to realize the probability of such a random encounter to be extremely miniscule. So ask me—how did she do it?” The mother prompts him. She sounds almost—excited.

Ben stands there, mouth opening and closing as his mind works through the sentence, his mind turning. He hadn’t given it much thought, the first time around. When the mother had first implied that the other Rey had made her way back quickly, Ben didn’t even really stop to question whether she had made it back to the right universe, or if she had simply picked one she like, much like Ben had considered doing too many times to count—much like he _had._

“How, then?” He asks, the question coming out in a breathy, half-exasperated sigh.

“Have you tried the green door yet?” The voice offers instead of an answer, a sly smile pulling at the edges of her thin lips, and Ben huffs impatiently. His eyes trail up and around until he spots a deep green door, like evergreens deep in the forest where he spotted Rey for the first time. It’s much higher than he’s ever reached before.

He shakes his head stiffly, “no, I haven’t, but I’m not sure what that has to do with the conversation we’re having.”

“Perhaps, young Solo, you should,” the mother answers. She’s still staring at him. Ben is unnerved by the fact that she hasn’t blinked once. It is a subtle but constant reminder that she is not who she appears to be. Ben breaks her gaze and furrows his brow, studying the door carefully, when her meaning finally clicks.

“Are you saying—” he nearly chokes on his words. There’s a tight feeling in his chest and he can barely stand.

“I am sure you know, what this place is,” the mother begins slowly, and though she is standing before him now, her voice still seems to push around him in all directions, “I am sure you can feel it. It is a place where all things meet, where all realities and every moment in time connects at a single point in existence. Where everything is tied to everything else by those strands that tie together all things.”

“The Force,” Ben offers weakly, breathing heavy. He turns from her quickly, scrambling to the wall. His hands connect with the cool stones jutting out, and he begins climbing. He feels the things, rough and solid beneath his hands, and it grounds him even as it feels like his soul might fly away.

“Yes, the Force. It is my job to hold on to those strands, in a way. There are some who worship me as the creator—but it isn’t precisely true. I did not create all things, as I too was once created. It is the Force that gives, the Force that takes. I merely observer and nurture—like a mother of sorts, as you like to refer to me in your mind,” the voice continues.

The admission takes him aback for a moment. Ben isn’t necessarily surprised that she can hear his thoughts, being at a wellspring of the Force. He too can open feeble minds without much difficulty. Yet there’s something about the implications of that, the idea that she, like the force, is all around him, truly omnipresent, that settles unevenly within him. _Did the Jedi know of this? Did the Sith?_

“A dyad, young Solo, is a sacred thing. It is created by the Force and through the Force. It is the tying of two souls into one. It is putting two lives on a single path of destiny. It is life itself. It is my job to ensure you find that path,” she explains. The muscles in Ben’s arms burn and strain as he pulls himself up further, higher. “But I am not inclined to let you waste the chances you are given. Very few men get the chance, as you did, at true and utter belonging. Many less get a second. The girl did not take long to realize this truth, to know what it was she wanted, to heal. It was then I may have suggested a certain path might lead her in the right direction. I know you see doors, but for her, every universe, every moment in time was another hallway. This place was a twisting maze, a labyrinth in which she stood at the very center.”

Ben lets out an earthy chuckle, eyes still locked on his target some ways above him. She always had a quick wit and a sharper tongue. She always knew what she wanted, even in the inherent recklessness of it. Rey had shipped herself off to him, hadn’t she? Impulsive, to be sure. You have to be quick to survive in the desert. There’s not a second to spare. That same urgency thrums through him now, pushing him onward. There’s a certain satisfaction that accompanies every inch. It’s as if he can feel himself getting closer to her, even in this place outside of space and time.

“And now, you too understand,” the mother finishes, and Ben is pulling himself up onto the landing and pressing himself up against the door. He turns to look down at her, only to find the mother looking up at him. The small smile that had only been suggested at earlier is now breaking across her face in full. She looks almost—proud. “I told you once, boy, that I never wished for you to fail. Though your path was long, it was never futile. I needed you to find serenity within yourself. Always warring with your own existence, always regretting. You cannot live and regret in the same breath. One is pulling you forward while the other is chaining you in place. There is a balance in all things, an order in the cycle of life and death, and your journey is not over. You thought once that the girl was balance itself—you were able to see the light and dark in her eyes, the life and death. But she is not the balance, you are—together.”

“Thank you,” is all Ben can think to say, and even then, the sentiment seems incomplete.

“Go now,” she tells him evenly. He hesitates for only a moment, before giving her a sharp nod and turning toward the door.

Ben inhales deeply. The rest of his life is on the other side of this door. A thousand thoughts spill through his mind. _Will she still want me? Can I do this?_ And still, after all this time, _am I ready?_

“You are,” the voice echoes around him. He wonders if she's still standing down there, still watching, or if she's faded back into the air. He doesn't turn to look.

Instead, Ben closes his eyes, long fingers wrapping around the door handle. There's a sort of finality in this moment. It settles in his stomach like a stone. He turns the nob.

*

“What the hell?” A man sputters, his chair clattering with the sudden movement, as Ben walks into what appears to be some sort of meeting room. Various empty chairs are scattered around a large table. One man, a familiar man, sits at the end, staring at Ben with wide eyes. It’s the traitor—Finn. Ben pays him no mind for a minute though, because he is suddenly drunk on the completeness he is feeling, as if all of his pieces have finally fallen back into place, as if the spaces between each rib were filled with _her._ He’s dizzy with it, and he reaches out to stable himself on the edge of the table, suddenly more desperate than ever to have her in his arms.

The words come out quick and rough, his voice low, almost feral, “where’s Rey?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very next chapter guys, I promise. I won't leave you here long, I'll try to have the next chapter up in the next couple of days. :)


	17. Together At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally could not wait another moment to get this chapter out, so you're welcome. Also thank you all sooooo much for the wonderful response to last chapter. It is great to be so excited to write, and to have all of you so excited to read it. We are almost done, but there's still room for some more sweetness. Fluff, straight ahead.

Rey is sitting in the quiet mess hall, scraping at her food when she feels it like a shift in the air. Her breathing hitches, and she stands up suddenly. The movement jostles her tray and it falls to the ground in a clash of rations and utensils. The few officers in the room turn to look at her, as she stands, wide eyed amongst them. It’s as if her entire being has somehow clicked into place, and whatever hopes she had of moving on or letting go, of learning to be happy without him suddenly fall away, because how could she ever live without him knowing that it could feel like _this?_ Rey spins where she stands, searching, searching for a hint of him, a glimpse of broad shoulders or dark hair, before fleeing from the room.

She crashes into Finn as she’s leaving.

“Woah! Rey!” He exclaims, startled. His hands shoot up, palms flat and calming as he looks at her with his deep, brown eyes, “are you okay?”

“Where is he? He’s here I know he’s here,” Rey is rambling. There isn’t a moment to spare. Every instinct in her body is begging, aching, screaming at her to find him.

“Ben,” Finn says, and the way the word settles like a statement instead of a question makes Rey still.

“You’ve seen him?” She asks, chest heaving with deep, ragged breaths.

“It seems like the both of you had plans to scare the _shit_ out of me today,” Finn tells her, half a laugh pulling itself from his throat. It dies when he sees the desperation in her gaze, imploring him for answers. “He was in the conference room two minutes ago, wild eyed and demanding to know where you were, actually. I had half a mind to have him arrested,” he begins, but the words fade on his tongue. Whatever vendetta he had against the man had no place here, not with the way Rey was staring at him, hope in her eyes. Finn must realize this, because he changes his approach and tells her, “I had just started looking for you myself when—”

“Ben,” Rey breathes, because there he is, walking up behind Finn like he hasn’t aged a day, like not a moment has passed between them, and time stills around her. She’s entranced with his striking face, with his constellation skin, with the set of his jaw, with the way her soul calls out to his.

“I’ll,” Finn stammers, stepping to the side awkwardly, “I guess I’ll be going.” He turns and slinks down the hall quickly.

*

Ben hears her first, before he sees her. There’s a sort of panic in her tone that draws him further down the hall. But when he does see her, when he _does,_ she puts all the other Rey’s, all the other moments in time to shame, because this Rey, this _moment_ is his. And when she looks him in the eyes, really looks at him, he watches the way her mouth forms his name like a prayer instead of a question, how the tension that had been in her voice fades into calm. He knows it then, that every hour without sleep, every world he drug himself through, every single week or month or year or _eternity_ he might have spent looking for her could never be torture or tempting enough to make him give up this moment, _this moment_ right here where she’s gazing up at him like he might fade away.

He barely notices it when her friend leaves, and then it is only because he can take a step closer to her.

“Hi,” Ben breathes, and the word is a shaky sort of sound as it leaves him.

“Hi,” she says in return, and he smiles wide enough that it hurts.

Rey leads him to a quiet room after a few minutes of silence, minutes he spent studying her. She was wearing light grey robes, much like the ones she had on the Supremacy, and her hair was tied not in three buns, but a single one, loose and messy on the top of her head. He wonders to himself how long it has been, really, for her to be so changed and yet so much the same, as she takes him away from the lingering eyes and hushed questions. There are very few who recognize him for who he is, but even then, the whispers travel quickly.

“I thought you would never come,” Rey begins, once they’ve closed themselves into the small records room, shelves filled with holo-files lining the walls, “I had hoped, after that night on Ahch-To I knew you were out there, looking. But it was so _long.”_

“You have no idea,” Ben tells her, the words coming out in a bitter chuckle. He explains it all to her, then, tucked among the shadows. He tells her of the World Between Worlds, of the hundreds of Rey’s, hundreds of moments he waded through on his way back to her. He stops when he gets to Alderaan, throat tight, but it isn’t a secret he can keep from her. He begins the story slowly, gently, “I once spent a week on Alderaan, with a girl that was you, but wasn’t. She—we were companions, in that time. It was nothing more than desperation holding us together, but it was something—I held her at night, and when I looked at her, I tried not to think about you.”

He doesn’t like the way Rey’s face twists in confusion, how her brow draws low over eyes filled with something like hurt, how her jaw sets in a cool sort of defiance. Ben doesn’t want her to shut herself off from him again, like she had that day on Crait, when she looked at him like she would never see him the same again. He wants to reach out, to grab on to her somehow, but he’s more afraid of her rejection than anything.

“What would you have done, in your weakest moments, if it meant you could be happy again?” He says instead, voice pleading, “when you missed me, _if_ you missed me, what would you have done?”

“Anything, everything,” Rey whispers. A part of Ben, a deep, aching part of him surges with pride at the admission, that she might have needed him just as much as he had needed her. It’s her words that push him on.

“And what if, right in front of you there was the answer to all your problems. What if he was broken, like me, like you, longing for someone to put the pieces back together. What if you had been searching for years—ages? What if you had walked down one hundred paths and knew there were one hundred more ahead? In a single, terrible, moment of weakness, wouldn’t you be tempted to stay?” He asks her, and his voice breaks.

“Maybe—I don’t know,” Rey says, shaking her head. He can tell there’s a part of her that understands, a part of her who believes she might have done the same, but there’s also a part of her who feels as cast away and abandoned as she had back on Jakku. She won’t meet his eyes and so he drops his own gaze to the dark tiled floor.

“I didn’t love her, like I love you,” the words come out strangled, choked, but he’s desperate to make her understand, “I didn’t love any of them like I love you. None of them saw me, like you did. None of them looked me in the eyes and _saw_ me. You always did, since the moment I met you. I could never hide from you, Rey.” He pulls his eyes up to meet her own, certain he’ll find some of the same apprehension that had been scrawled across her face only moments before, but where there was once the deep lines of a frown, there is now the beginnings of a grin. Her lips are ticked upwards and her eyes are alight. She takes one sharp breath, another, and she’s laughing.

“Is this funny to you?” He asks, exasperated, “Am I a joke? I’m laying out to you one of my greatest shames—greater than all the black I’ve done in my life—and you’re what?” He waves his arm wide in the air, gesturing at her shaking form, “laughing at me?”

“Is it true?” She questions, the words breathy as they pass her lips. Rey reaches out to his hand, still suspended in the air before him, and grasps it lightly, curling her small fingers into his own. And _oh,_ hadn’t he always wished she would do this, take his hand, stand by his side. His face softens at her touch, and she whispers, the words tentative and unsure, “do you love me?”

“Why else would I be here, if not for you?” Ben admits quietly. Rey takes another small step forward, right hand still tangled with his, before reaching up to run the fingers of the other down his cheek.

“It went away, when I healed you,” Rey tells him quietly as she ghosts over the line of his missing scar.

“You could give me a million more and I would still come back to you,” Ben breathes, and it’s the truth.

“Because you love me?” She asks again, and this time she is teasing him with her sly grin and twinkling hazel eyes, and Maker how he wishes he were as smooth as his father in this moment.

He isn’t, his answer is only, “yes, always,” but it seems to be enough for her.

Then she’s pulling his face down to her own, dragging him in until he can taste her mouth with his. Ben’s tangling one hand in the loose strands of her hair at the base of her neck and pulling her in closer with the other. If the two of them fit together perfectly, pieces of the same puzzle snapping into place, well that just makes the moment all the more entrancing.

“I love you too,” Rey sighs against his lips, and he pulls away from her, his own eyes glimmering as he looks at her.

“I should hope so,” Ben tells her, feeling brave enough to plaster a Solo Smirk across his face, “or that would have been awkward.” If when she shoves him playfully, scowl intact, his heart trips over itself, well, that’s his secret to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys ever want to chat my tumblr is @soloredeemed


	18. Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys, here we are, the grand finale. I actually cried a little bit writing this, so I hope you enjoy it. It's a little choppy, but I wanted it to function kind of like an epilogue where various moments are showcased, and not the entirety of what happens. This has been a long and crazy journey, and I'm so glad you could all be on it with me. Feel free to message me on Tumblr @soloredeemed I'm always taking requests or willing to give any fic recommendations.

It’s an uncertain kind of love at first—the kind Ben remembers from when he was young. When padawans would look twice before lacing their fingers together on their way back to the huts, or playing secret games of spin the bottle late at night. It’s uncertain because it’s new, how the two of them revolve around each other. To spend so much time on the opposite end of a war, it’s hard to forget the wounds they so regret. Ben would follow Rey around during the day like a stray dog, grasping for her fingertips and shooting her shy smiles across the table at meetings he hadn’t really been invited to, but showed up at anyways. Most everyone knew who he was at this point, the word spreading like a wildfire through the sparse base, but with how Rey had vouched for him, and how gone for her he clearly was, no one felt the need to inform the new Galactic Senate that the former Supreme Leader of the First Order was indeed alive and well.

The first night, Ben hadn’t even intended to share his bunk, until he woke up in the dark to the feeling of his mattress shifting. He didn’t move, just let her tuck her chin into his chest. Once her breathing evened out, he let his nose nuzzle into her hair. She smelled like trees and sky, and he slept all the better for it. When they woke up, wrapped in each other like they never wanted to let go, it felt complete. She crawled into his bed the next night too, this time while he was still awake, and she pressed her ear against his chest to listen to the steady beating of his heart.

“You’re here,” she had whispered, low enough so that no one else would hear, “you’re really here.” The barracks had been mostly cleared out, as most of the Resistance had long returned to their homes, but there were still the stray few sleeping in the various quarters around base. If their row of bunks seemed less and less filled by the day, well they didn’t notice.

It’s about a week in, Rey tucked up underneath Ben’s chin, that he finally asks her.

“How long was I gone?” The question floats out over the room like a shadow and holds him a little tighter.

“A year and a half,” she chokes out, and Ben can feel her tremble against him, “how long was it for you?”

Ben doesn’t know, exactly. Time moved so strangely—if he had to guess, well, the only answer that seemed accurate was _‘too long._ ’ He thinks about offering this to her, but it feels cruel and incomplete, so he tells her the truth instead.

“I didn’t count it in time,” his voice low against Rey’s ear, “it never moved right, the days, the years, I could never tell the difference.”

“How long then?” Rey asks, genuine curiosity tinging the edge of the words.

“I counted it in you. I met 136 of you, not including the worlds where—where I couldn’t find you,” he admits.

She sucks in a shallow breath, and he exhales with her.

“When you touched my hand, that first night by the fire,” Rey tells him quietly, “you put the stars in my eyes for the first time. I was always looking up, on Jakku. Always watching ships fly away but never letting myself wonder what might be waiting for me out there. Even when—even when I finally left—” She doesn’t finish the thought, shaking her head quietly, letting her forehead brush against his chest, “But I could see galaxies when I looked at you, nebulas in your stupid freckled skin and the cosmos in your eyes when you looked at me, and Ben,” she sighs for a moment, steeling herself against what was yet to come, “when you smiled at me on Exegol, it was like staring straight into the sun, and then you were gone, and it was like the whole world grew smaller. A year and a half,” Rey shudders again, “a year and a half of waiting and hoping and longing, and eventually I was back to being that little girl on Jakku again, not even daring to dream.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben breathes against the crown of her head. It’s all he has to offer her, “I’m sorry.”

“But you’re here now,” Rey says, the words firm, determined. If he could see, Ben would bet there was a fire in her eyes, blazing like the one in her heart. She would never let him go again, and for that, he was eternally grateful.

*

Slowly but surely, Ben becomes welcomed into the fold. Rose had been the first to befriend him, smiling wide at him when he had offered to help her with some repairs, and Rey wasn’t surprised. She thought back to the conversation she had with Rose, all those months ago, and how the girl, not quite understanding, had still made the effort to be kind. Finn, begrudgingly, followed in suit. The two didn’t talk much outside of mutual interactions with Rey, but the pair was amiable to each other. Occasionally, Ben would offer the man a sheepish ‘hello’ when they passed each other down the hall, and Finn would return it in kind.

It was Poe, out of all of them, that held out the longest. Their usual group is sitting in the mess hall, eating dinner from their metal trays, utensils scraping as they chat easily with one another, when it finally happens. Rey and Ben sit on one side of the long table, close enough that their thighs are pressed up against the other’s and their elbows occasionally knock as they eat. It is easy and familiar, and Rey blushes red whenever Ben turns to gaze down at her. Finn, Rose, and Poe sit on the other side, with the latter off at the end, silently staring down at his meal as if it personally offended him.

“ _He shouldn’t even be here,”_ Rey had heard him hiss to Finn after Ben’s first week at the base, dark brows pulled in concern. Finn had merely shrugged unhelpfully and watched as Poe shuffled off. Rey met the miffed man’s eyes as he stormed away, not a hint of apology in them.

Rey isn’t sure exactly what does it, Ben is only half-way through the Bantha joke he is telling, when Poe barks out a laugh. Ben stops mid-sentence, just reaching the part about Jabba the Hutt’s daughter, and the entire table turns to look at him. Poe is still snickering in his chair when he feels their eyes on him and looks up.

“I’ve uh, heard this one,” he offers lamely, dropping his gaze back to his rations. He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the meal, but after that, things change between him and Ben. Rey knows that Poe would rather die than admit it, but she can tell the two men actually _like_ each other.

“Made a new friend, huh?” She teases Poe the next afternoon when she passes him on her way to spar with Ben—something they do for fun now, instead of like before—and he bristles.

“I’m just treating the guy like a human being,” Poe scoffs in return, brushing past her.

“Uh huh,” Rey throws over her shoulder at him, and she smiles at the way his shoulders tense. He doesn’t deny it again.

*

It’s six months after Ben’s return when her friends start acting— _weird._

Rey swears she has walked in on them multiple times, heads pushed together in low whispers, only to silence once she enters the room. Ben doesn’t hang about her as much as before, working instead on some project or another. She admits to herself that she misses his constant presence, always a shadow at her side, but she’s happy he’s finding his own happiness, and that’s enough.

Today, Rey finds herself entering another one of these such incidents, Rose harshly shushing the group as she enters. Rey scrunches her face in confusion, before Rose is walking toward her, eyes alight.

“Let’s go put on something nice, yeah?” Rose tells her quietly, and Rey’s eyes shoot to the two men in the room. Both of them look sheepishly up at her, and Rey begins to suspect the lot of them are conspiring in something.

“Is my current garb not acceptable?” Rey laughs in return, eager to dispel the awkward silence that has fallen over the group.

Rose merely tugs at her arm, “let’s see if there’s anything nice in Leia’s old trunks.”

*

Rey, who has never had a mother to do her hair, outside of the three buns when she was little, or had a sister to dress her nice, imagines this must be what that’s like. She’s sitting on a chair in Leia’s old quarters, left untouched by time, wearing a light green dress speckled in wildflowers, long and flowing, that the two of them had found in one of her old trunks. Rose is braiding her hair up into a high bun, letting loose tendrils fall around her face.

“What’s going on, Rose?” Rey asks, voice breathy.

“My sister used to do my hair,” Rose answers instead, ignoring the question, “Paige. She was a bomber, for the Resistance. She, she died fighting.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says in return, looking up at Rose’s reflection in the mirror.

“It’s alright. It was a while ago now. But she used to let me sit between her legs as she did my hair up. It was the only time I ever felt pretty, looking in the mirror, seeing her handywork. When you remember this day, you’ll want to feel pretty, Rey, you’ll want to look beautiful,” Rose tells her, smiling.

Rey nods, a little unsure, but then Rose says something about keeping still, and all Rey can do is sit there and wonder.

*

A little while later, Rey’s three friends are leading her down a small path into the forest just outside of the base. The sun is setting, and the sky looks as if it is dripping gold onto the earth. Her dress drags over the ground, and she imagines it looks as if wildflowers are sprouting in her footsteps. Rose was right, she does feel beautiful. A moment later, they’re stepping into a clearing in the trees, surrounded by green. Ben stands tall in the middle, smiling and better dressed than Rey has ever seen him. Her breath hitches in her throat as she looks at him, all broad shoulders and styled hair. He holds out his hands for her, and she’s stepping forward to take them with her own.

Rey thinks she hears Poe scoff “don’t blow it,” from behind her, but there’s tears in her eyes now, as Ben stares at her.

“That was my grandmother’s dress,” he breathes, dragging his eyes down the length of her, “you’re—Maker you’re beautiful. Perfect,” he stumbles, cheeks flushing red.

Before Rey can even answer he’s dropping down onto one knee in the grass before her.

“I want to do it right this time,” Ben tells her, eyes sparkling and earnest. He pulls Leia’s ring out from the pocked of his black suit pants, and Rey isn’t even sure where in the galaxy he found a suit that fits him, before deciding it isn’t the time to think about such unimportant things. Not with him gazing at her like that, like she’s his entire universe.

“Yes,” she tells him, bring her hands to his face and stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, “yes.”

“I haven’t even asked you yet,” he says, laughing. And _oh_ the sound of him laughing is her favorite sound, she just knows it.

“But you have,” she tells him, pulling him up toward her, “you’ve asked me so many times in so many different ways, and I’m answering you now. Yes. Yes. You never have to ask me again.”

And then he’s kissing her, faces smashed up against one another, desperate and searching. Ben’s hand tugs on her waist, pulling Rey ever closer, and she leans into his touch, now a familiar thing.

Her lips feel bruised when he finally pulls away, breath ragged. Rey wants to sag against him, to keep him close forever, but he’s taking her hand in his and sliding on his mother’s ring.

“I would search a thousand universes to find you,” Ben tells her. Rey thinks she hears Rose sniffle behind them, but she doesn’t dare break the moment to check. “I want forever, Rey.”

She’s nodding frantically, tears streaming freely now. Ben reaches toward her face and brushes them away with his rough fingertips.

“I want forever, and then I want whatever comes after.”

“Okay,” she whispers, tugging his shirt until she’s flush against his chest, “forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Forever."   
> Ugh, kill me <3


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